Transcript - Council Tackles Affordability and Safety - Council

Sound check. 1 2 3 4. Sound check. 1 2 3 4. Welcome to council April 1st, 2026. Clerk Trenum, could you please confirm the quorum is present? Deputy mayor quorum is present. Thank you. In the chambers today, councelor Francis, councelor Jackson, councelor Bey, councelor Pauls, councelor clerk. Thank you. Councelor Cooper, councelor McMaken, councelor Cretch, councelor Spataphora, Councelor Nan, Counselor A. Wilson, Councelor Wang, and Councelor Casar. Um, regrets today from councelor M. Wilson. She's provided regrets for this meeting for personal reasons. Uh, so good morning. As we have quorum present for today's meeting, I'd like to call this meeting of city council to order. Please stand for the national anthem. Canada, our home and native land. True patient love in all of us command. With glowing hearts we see the rise. A true north strong and free from far and wide. Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee. Lord keep our land. Glorious and free. Oh can we stand on guard for thee? Who can we stand on for thee? One further note, the mayor is on special city business and she will be joining us in a bit. Call to order. So, thank you. Please be seated. The city of Hamilton is situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie neutral hernatani and missagas. This land is covered by the dish with one spoon wampam belt covenant which was an agreement between the Hades and the Ashinabay and Ashinabay to share and care for the resources around the great lakes. We further acknowledge that this land is covered by the between the lakes purchase 1792 between the crown and the missagas of the first of the credit first nation. Today, the city of Hamilton is home to many indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we recognize that we must do more to learn about the rich history of this land so that we can better understand our roles as residents, neighbors, partners, and caretakers. Members are reminded that all electronic devices are to be switched to a non-auto function during council meetings, so please turn your phones on silent. Members are also reminded of the fiveinut time limit when asking questions or making a statement and that no member of council shall speak more than once on any matter at council at a council meeting without passing a motion to do so. So, we're on to the approval of the agenda. Are there any amendments to the agenda? Not seeing any. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Councelor Bey, councelor Pauls, may I please have your hand vote now? All in favor? Thank you. That passes unanimously. Declarations of interest. Members of council, are there any declarations of interest? Not seeing any. We're on to ceremonial activities and there aren't any today. So, we're going to move down to the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting uh 5.1. It was March 4th, 2026. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of March 4th, 2026 as presented? Councelor Wang and Councelor Francis. Thank you. Is there any discussion on those minutes? Not seeing any. Please indicate with your vote now by raising your hand. All in favor. That looks unanimous. Thank you. There are no items for information. We're going to committee recommendations. So we're on to 7.1. City Housing Hamilton shareholder March 3rd, 2026. Councelor Bey, may I have a motion to receive and approve the recommendations within the city housing Hamilton shareholder minutes of March 3rd, 2026? Thank you, Deputy Mayor. It's my pleasure to bring forward the minutes CHHS26-001 being the minutes of the city housing Hamilton shareholder meeting that was held on Tuesday March 3rd 2026 which is item 7.1 in the agenda and that it be received and the recommendations contained there within be approved hoping that councelor Nan might be the second on this one. Okay. So there we have it. Are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend, or have voted on separately? I'm not seeing anything at this time. So, this is an electronic vote. Please indicate your vote now on the minutes. And it's up. Thumbs up from councelor McMin. That carries 14 to zero. So we're on to 7.2 PWC 26004 public works committee. Councelor Nan, may I please have a motion to receive and approve the recommendations within the public works committee minutes of March 23rd, 2026? Certainly, you may moved by myself and seconded by Vice Chair Casar that the PW C26-004 being the minutes of the public works committee meeting held on Monday, March 23rd, 2026 be received in the recommendations contained therein be approved. Thank you, councelor. Are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend, or have voted on separately? Well, I'm not seeing any. So, at this time, the electronic vote is up. And when we please have your vote. That carries 14 to zero. Now we're on to 7.3, the planning committee for March 24th. Councelor Wang, may I please have a motion to receive and approve the recommendations within the planning committee's open and closed minutes of March 24th, 2026, and receive the correspondence issues. Microphone. Oh, thank you. Yes. Yes, Deputy Mayor. Uh moved by myself, seconded by you. Um that the PLC2604 being the minutes of planning committee meeting held on Tuesday, March 24th, be received and the recommendations contained there and be approved. B that the closed session minutes of the planning committee meeting held on Tuesday, March 24th be approved as presented and remain confidential. and C that the following correspondence items be received for sub one PED26068 respecting applications for official plan amendments and zoning bylaw amendment for lands located at 861 highway 8 uh ward 10 from the following a property management office uh 269 Glover Road Prifun M uh P Trfunic resident from on item 7.3 P de Jerovic resident B asanov Property Management Office at 269. Sub 2 report peed 23105A concerning major transit station areas protected major transit station areas proposed official plan amendments for provincial review and public consultation from M. Johnson and M. Leblanc from Urban Solutions and sub three motion concerning the investigation of renewable energy generation as a secondary use associated with agricultural operations. Thank you. Thank you counselor. And I see that the list is populating, but first we're going to call on councelor Nan and then we'll call on councelor Jackson who wish to make some separate amendments to the recommendations contained in minute item 9.6 of PLC26-044. So I'm going to go to councelor Nan first. Thank you councelor Nan. Thank you through you deputy mayor. Um the amend amendment myself and councelor Huang would bring forward is on 9.6 and uh I did prepare some whereas clauses because I think it's important for the public record for there to be transparency even though that is not necessarily required for an amendment um to a committee report. So this is seeking to defer the steelport lands from phase one of the official plan amendment of the employment area review and context is whereas in October 2024 the planning act definition of areas of employment was revised and the provincial planning statement definition of employment area was introduced which explicitly prohibited new institutional and standalone commercial and office uses in employment areas and whereas all planning decisions of municipalities must must conform form to the planning act and be consistent with the provincial planning statement and official plans of the city of Hamilton must be brought into conformity and consistency with these provincial planning documents. And whereas the current employment land area lands use designation of the urban Hamilton official plan and setting sail secondary plan all permit land uses no longer consistent with the definition of employment area in provincial planning documents and consist consequently the city's employment areas do not have the benefit of protection. Thank you counselor. No, no. Oh, sorry. My microphone was cut off and I was still reading the warehouses and that's okay. Now it's on. Are we good? I think so. And your speakers list uh disappeared, just so you know. Um, okay. I forget where I was. Oh. Um, all permitted land use no longer consistent with the definition of employment areas in the provincial planning documents and consequently the city's employment areas do not have the benefit of protection for long-term employment use. Whereas phase one of the employment area review, if approved, will amend the official plan of the city of Hamilton to achieve conformity with the planning act in consistency with the provincial planning statement by implementing a definition of areas of employment consistent with those documents and prohibiting new institutional and standalone commercial and office uses. And whereas phase two of the employment area review is designed to comprehensively review and in inventory each parcel of land within the city's employment areas and determine which areas should continue to meet the provincial definition of employment areas while other areas will be removed from employment areas and promote a broader range of employment and complimentary uses such as institutional and standalone commercial and office uses. two more warehouses. The Bayfront Industrial Area Strategy is a comprehensive strategy that establishes a vision that it will continue to be one of the city's major employment areas, home to a diverse range of economic activities that enhance the global competitiveness of the city and the greater Golden Horseshoe and will continue to accommodate a high number of jobs and be planned to attract a wide range of innovative and synergistic creative industries, green streets, green infrastructure, public art, and public spaces. and whereas Slate WH HWD, Inc. has been developing a conceptual master plan to guide the development of 800 hectares former Stelco property at 386 Wilcox Street in Bay in the Bayfront Industrial Area and in 2025 submitted a draft plan of subdivision application 25T 202403 to redevelop the property for new employment uses, municipal roads, and public open spaces, retail and office uses. Therefore, be it resolved. A committee members that appendex A of this report be amended to exclude the lands within the draft plan of subdivision application as referenced at 386 Wilcox Street in Hamilton. In B, recommendation A of the report be amended as follows. First step is that the city initiative CI25F respecting amendments to the employment area designations of the urban Hamilton official plan to amend policies and sk schedules to align the land's use permissions with the planning act be approved on the following basis. One, that the urban Hamilton official plan amendment attached as appendix A to report peed 2603 as amended be prepared and provided to council for adoption and then striking out some activity there. And then finally, that the appropriate land use designations for the subject site be determined through phase two of the city of Hamilton's employment area review, which will also involve a determination of whether the site or portions of the site should be included within the city's employment areas. And so of significance to council as well as the public is that Slate have submitted a draft plan subdivision application that the city is very well informed about. The details are very, very clear. there's been a synergistic collaborative conversation for the transformation of these employment lands and um so I want to say thank you to staff for working with councelor Hang and I and preparing this detailed uh amendment and subsequently we'll receive the amendment to the official plan uh as it's related in I or no B I1 uh at a future council meeting. Thank you. Okay, I see if anyone would like to speak to this um please populate the list right now. We're first going to go to clerk Trenum for some more guidance. Just further on that. So the original speakers list is preserved. This is an alternative speakers list. So if you would like to speak to this amendment, pressing your button now will allow you to get on that list. The original list is still there, chair. Okay. So thank you for that. We'll be handling these amendments sequentially. Um, councelor Casar, you're up. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Uh, at planning committee, there was a lot of discussion on this topic, a very important topic, and I'd ask a number of questions, uh, including a to a representative from Slate who delegated. Um, so I can see the merit in the motion, but I would like to ask staff to speak to the merit of the motion as well, just to be put on the public record to ensure um that staff is supportive and that the rationale put forward, which I think it is, um, does not um, add any risk to the city for maintaining employment lands. And I'll ask the same question for the other amendment coming forward. Thank you. So, will we go to GM Prasad? Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this item, Mr. Chair, and through you to the counselor. It's by the way, I'm Arvin Prasad, general manager of uh planning and economic development. Uh in terms of this specific motion, staff have worked with both counselors on it and um we've um we we've worked on this motion in a very um positive way because we we have received a draft plan of subdivision application for the subject lands on uh by Slate on the former Stelco lands. Um and uh there has been as the counselor mentioned collaboration and this real sense of working together to move this project forward. The urgency that came and the reason why we do have a two-phase process here is because there really was an urgency in terms of the potential for applicants to remove lands from the employment land base, reduce our employment land base as a result of these provincial changes. That fear is not with these lands. These lands are undergoing the proper planning processes and they will remain employment. So, so we have no no concerns and uh staff are supportive of the um amendment. Okay. Thank you for that. Um I'm not seeing any counselor. That's good. I appreciate the response. It's helpful. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm assuming that we're going to vote on the amendment now. So, that will be a electronic vote and we're just waiting for the vote to come up. And that passes 14 to zero. Thank you to the counselors and staff for doing their homework on that one. Um we're going to councelor Jackson now who also wishes to move an amendment. Councelor Jackson, you have the floor. Thank you very much. Uh Deputy Mayor Tatterson. Good morning. Moved by myself. Seconded by W 10 counselor Jeff Bey. Amendment to the phase one official plan amendment of the employment area review. Whereas the property owner of the lands at 575 Highland Road West, 655 Pritchard, 1603 Rimmel East, received draft plan of subdivision approval, city file number noted there, and approval of a zoning bylaw amendment, city file number noted there since 2014 and approved in 2016. Whereas the approved sight specific zoning that was established in 16 permits a wide range of employment and supporting commercial usages. Whereas the owner delayed the registration of the approved draft plan of subdivision in order to advance the construction and extension of Ton Road from the upper Red Hill Valley Parkway through the owner's land and beyond of Pritchard Road at the city's request. Whereas the construction and extension of Telon Road required additional studies and approvals in order to cross a hydro corridor as part of the city's request. And whereas the construction and extension of Ton Road beyond the owner's lands has created a significant delay in the development of its lands for the range of usages approved through the original sight specific zoning. Therefore, be resolved. A that appendix A of the report number noted be amended to exclude these lands at 575 Highland Road West, 655 Pritchard, 1603 Rhyal Road East from the employment areas designation B. that the lands of these three same properties, which is one big block, shall continue to be reviewed as part of the city's employment areas review phase 2 process as a potential employment areas designation. If I might just add some further commentary, Deputy Mayor Tatison. Um I'm very familiar with these lands uh that are in the Red Hill Business Park, Stony Creek Business Park, and I can tell you that from 2016, the M4 zoning allowed for a wide range of commercial usages. Um it's very important to note that the owner of the property paid for the extension of Ton Road. The city of Hamilton should have paid for this. Didn't even have the money in its capital budget. Was probably many years down the road. But to advance hopeful development, much needed commercial, manufacturing, taxes, and investment uh for our city, the owner paid for the extension of Ton Road. Um he has I have worked closely with city staff in the last few days. Uh this was brought to my attention after the planning committee meeting last week. Although I believe the agent uh Mr. Fleta on behalf of multi area developments spoke before committee but some of these additional historical context wasn't brought to committee's attention. Unfortunately, I want to thank acting chief um planner Anita Fabick and manager uh Steven Burke and their entire team for helping me in the last few days uh bring this motion forward. I believe there's justification rationale to support this exemption and again this is just for phase one. The obligatory phase 2 employment lands review will be automatically including all lands across the city including these three parcels owned by this particular owner. So I just want to say given deputy mayor Taz and given the historical context what the owner did for the city without submitting any bill and also I want to say his desire is to get moving on. He's got investors ready to invest and to get to site plan approval for their projects. He has no desire of any attempt for conversion to residential. He wants to keep this entirely commercial light industrial. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Tatterson, seconded by councelor Bey. Thank you, Councelor Jackson. We're looking for our list to populate and the first speaker is councelor Casar. You have the floor. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Tatterson. uh similar question that I asked on the previous amendment just through you to staff. Does this meet the same bar that the steelport lands amendment uh reaches and if so could you just explain why through you to Jim Prasad? Thank you. It's Arvin Prasad, general manager, planning and economic development. Thank you for that question councelor Kasar through the chair. Um different situation different circumstances but the same result. uh the um I believe that with this specific applications had it not been for the um road extension of Ton Road um most likely that the developer probably would have had site plan by now. So it's been delays delays be beyond the developer um but um having said that um dealing with this through phase two no objections at all. It meets the spirit and intent of what we're trying to do here. So, okay. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Councelor Casar. Um, not seeing anybody else, so we'll go to a vote on that amendment at this time. And the vote is up. And that passes 14 to zero. Thank you to the movers of those amendments. Now, are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend, or have voted on separately? And we do have a populated list again. And first up is councelor Francis. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Tatterson uh wanted to have a separate vote on items 9.1 and 9.3. And if I could briefly speak to them when the time is right. Okay. Is that time now? Let's go on both or Well, let's go to 9.1 first. Okay. Uh 9.1. Yeah. I just want to reaffirm my vote from the planning committee last Tuesday. Um, this sort of plan may work in Toronto, but it doesn't reflect the reality here in Hamilton. It removes council's ability to respond to local conditions such as eliminating parking minimums based on a very uncertain LRT timeline. Uh, for those reasons, I will continue to oppose this. This is putting the cart way before the horse. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Um, we'll have a separate vote at that time. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to 9.1 at this time? Okay, councelor Casar, I'm going to allow you to jump the queue in order to address 9.1. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. I just think it'd be appropriate to ask staff to just explain the recommendation and what is before us here. Uh because not everyone was at planning committee. So, if I could ask that through you to staff. Okay. Thank you. And who will take that? Yes. Uh thank you very much. This is a pretty uh detailed recommendation. So I'm going to ask uh acting chief planner and director of planning Anita Fayback to help me with this. Okay. Thank you. Good morning. Anita Feayback, acting director of planning and chief planner. Uh the purpose of this report is to present proposed official plan amendments to implement the major tra transit station area policies of the provincial planning statement and the protected major transit station area requirements of the planning act and to seek direction from council to initiate consultation. There's some legislated components required in terms of uh the requirement for an open house. And so these are just draft uh documents. Um again seeking council direction to go out and consult u the just to clarify the when we're talking about the major transit station areas we are talking generally around the LRT corridor and uh uh 500 meter or an 800 meter distance uh I believe it's 800 meters around each of those station areas. Okay. Thank you. Thank you and deputy mayor. What I heard this is about permission to go consult with the public. I think this uh council has supported getting information and bringing back for a future decision in the past. So I will support what staff have recommended or what planning committee has recommended. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Councelor Casar. Is there anyone else on 9.1 that would like to speak? Just raise your hand. I'm going to go to councelor Clark. Deputy Mayor Tatter. So um the the document indicates proposed official plan amendments for provincial review and public consultation. So first is the consultation happening before we submit to the province for their review and what exactly is the province reviewing? Do they have the opportunity to say no? Are we ready to answer that? Okay. Please identify Sorry. Yes, it's Steve Burke, manager of sustainable communities. So, we actually have done public consultation on these amendments that we're bringing forward. What we're now doing is because it's a section 26 amendment, it requires provincial or minister's approval. And so, we're we're we have to submit it to the minister uh for review and approval. There may be um amendments that the province introduces and then at that point we'd be going out for public consultation on any amendments that are proposed prior to bringing them back to council. Thank you. So the province provides feedback to the city and then the city takes those that feedback and then goes out to consult for one last time. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. I'll support the motion. Thanks for that clarification, Councelor Clark. Anyone? Just a little hand vote now on 9.1. Okay, so we're going to go back to the populated list now and we're going to go to Councelor Jeff Bey. Thank you. I wasn't sure in the order that we were going, but we're here. Uh I just wanted to speak very quickly to item 8.1. Uh to offer some closure for members of planning committee. Uh there was extensive conversation around this particular item. Uh for those um new to the file, this is with regards to an application at 861 Highway 8 in Stony Creek, PEED26068. And members of planning committee will recall that there was a um a request from the adjoining property owner and potential developer adjacent to this site. And for those new to the file, 861 Highway 8 is uh the planned uh location for a new long-term care facility in the ward, replacing an older dated facility. So, we're moving from an older, I dare say antiquated 100 bed facility within W 10 to this, which will be a replacement new modern 160 bed uh long-term care facility within the ward. The adjacent property owner is a proposal that'll be coming forward shortly, which is um an attainable I call it an attainable townhouse uh complex with a land lease uh scenario which um lowers the entry cost into home ownership and uh they're good companion pieces these these two projects side by each where potentially seniors may downsize to the townhouse and eventually move next door to the long-term care. So, there's a lot of synergistic properties. The property owner of the townhouse uh proposal, which has yet to come forward, noted some concerns about the configuration of the long-term care facility. The long-term care facility, unfortunately, it only really has one way to be built due to the fact that the property has extensive uh flood plane uh water course and hazard and conservation elements to it. only 35% of the property is developable. So they're stuck in how they have to build build this building uh given that configuration. Uh so it was asked that um the two parties might be able to look at a way to um modify the bylaw that we approved at planning committee that would be agreeable to both property owners. They had extensive conversations between planning and council to find a resolution. And what uh members will see is that um if you go down to the very very bottom at 13269 that is the amendment to the amending bylaw which satisfies both parties. And I do want to thank planning staff. Unfortunately I have to have my back to you. Thank you for working with the two proponents to find a satisfactory outcome that satisfies both parties. Everybody's pleased. Now we can proceed with the uh eventual construction of this uh very badly needed facility in our community. So my thanks uh to everyone around the table and um I'm certain that this will reach uh universal adoption. Thank you. Thank you counselor. Very important information you shared there. We're going to jump back to councelor Francis just to finish off his 9.3 and then we're going to go to councelor clerk. So, councelor Francis, you're up. Yes. This this is the opportunity to speak to 9.3 chair. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. I just wanted to uh vote no as well on the second anti-car item on the agenda. Uh nothing but a money grab. Uh if council is suddenly interested in reducing the levy impact, uh the focus should be on cutting back on spending rather than creating new taxes or increasing fines. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for sharing that. And anyone else wish to speak to 9.3 that's on the floor at this moment? I see councelor uh Paul's you're activated now. Thank you. I mentioned Oh, thank you. And at the meeting I mentioned uh that the BAS uh uh they really want people to come and shop and uh but uh on Concession Street I just want to say there's a hospital there and I get a lot of calls where people call me and say I was just in and I just um brought my husband because of the cancer he had or whatever and I come out and I receive a ticket and they're just said where's the compassion? and I was uh you know 10 minutes late and I have so much on my mind. So it's not only for business um you know to help them out to have people park and get their hair done. I I'm talking about my concession but this is all the BAS but I want to just bring out the hospital issue. I have a lot of emails people very upset. So that's the reason I'm voting no to the increase of the parking. So thank you. Thank you, councelor, and just councelor Cooper. Uh, thank you, Chair. Uh, similar to councelor Paul's, I've heard the same complaints about the hospitals, but it's been at night where there's, uh, apparently some through street bylaw that if you park between certain hours overnight when you have to unexpectedly go to the hospital that the city tags you. There's no signage up at all. And uh what residents have said to me is they feel it's predatory and they feel disappointing that the the city would be using this uh um zone around these hospitals for this unidentified parking fines. And uh the words that they've been given is it's it's listed at city limits, but none of my residents can seem to find it even at the city limits. So I can't support this as well. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for sharing that, Councelor Cooper. Uh is there anyone else who wish to speak on this item? Let's go to councelor Clark and then to councelor Crretch. Thank you councelor. Thank you deputy mayor. Can I ask was there consultation done with the bas? I'm looking to the bench who will take that. Yes. Uh, thank you very much for that question. I'm just looking for uh Steve Mallaloy, my director, to answer that question, but I believe he may be online. Steve's not there at this time. Oh, okay. Um, I can get you get back to you on the specifics of the consultation. I know there was consultation done. Whether it was with the BIA or not, I'll have to get back to you, counselor. Okay. So, there was consultation done? Well, I I just can't give you the extent of the consultation, who was consulted with when. I'll have to get back to you on that. The challenge, I guess, deputy mayor, is the vote is now. I understand that. Is is there anyone that could uh reach out to Mr. Mallaloy? We are doing that right now, Mr. Thank you. Uh, can I suggest we just defer 9.3 until we get the answer to that question? Yeah, we could do that. Um, what I'll do is I'll take um other speakers until and then we'll see if someone comes on by that time. Councelor, I would like to reserve the right to speak once I get the answer. Of course, I I will accommodate that. Councelor Crretch. Thanks. I just wanted to ask staff briefly, as I recall from the discussion we had at planning committee, part of the rationale here was that we looked at other municipalities to determine what parking penalty amounts they were charging. We took an average of that number to determine what the increases would be as we we do this periodically. We adjust our fees. They haven't remained in place since 1985. we have changed them and it's a routine activity we do and we benchmark against other cities to get a sense and then we raise accordingly. I don't think we've done anything egregious here but I want staff to ask answer that question isn't that the methodology we used I assume that's true and that we're just doing a routine increase and then I have another question. Yes, thank you very much for that question and through the chair. Yes, we um we did an analysis of other municipalities and we found that our we were lower than other municipalities in the parking fees and uh it's a um it's a standard uh review and increase. In this review, did we target hospital areas for enforcement as part of this report? parking rates for hospital areas. Um I I'm not sure to what extent we specifically looked at any specific areas of the city. Um again, um director Mallaloy when he gets on um we'll be able to answer that for you. So if I understand correctly, because I read the report and I was there at plan committee, this is about increasing the penalty rates, not about changing where penalties are incurred. So, I don't think this report specifically is saying, "Okay, at this hospital, we're now going to start doing something different, and at this hospital, we're going to start doing something different." This report has nothing to do with hospitals, as far as I understand it. I do understand the complaints people are making about parking at hospitals. That makes sense, but this specific report has nothing hospital in it. So, I just want to make sure that we're we're voting on the right thing. Um, there is parking at hospitals. There's hospitals downtown. Um, and just to the question about the BAS, I know the BIAS in the downtown anyways did reach out to me because they were made aware about it and didn't know um and could have delegated it planning but didn't. Just so so you know that information about downtown anyways they were aware that it was happening. Um, my position is that it does make sense routinely for us to look at our parking penalties in terms of the level of the penalty and see if they make sense with other municipalities. As far as I can see, ours are still relatively speaking low, but we're increasing them so that they're in line with other municipalities. That's the report in front of us as far as I know. So, that's what I'll be voting in favor of. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Cretch. Next up, councelor Casar. Are you on this issue? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Deputy Mayor. I think it was in the report and discussed that planning committee. Just wanting to get confirmation from staff that in the budget um that is now in effect, there was roughly $700,000 of revenue contingent on these parking fee increases um that contribute revenue to achieve the tax budget that we had. So, could I get staff to speak to that and that if this is not approved by council, do we have to find a different funding source and what might we do there through you, Deputy Mayor? Okay, I think uh GM Ziggger is going to go with that one. Through the deputy mayor, Mike Zigger, general manager, finance, corporate services. Uh that is correct. Her 20206 adopted budget does reflect the $700,000 in additional fine revenue. And to the latter part of the question, if the city did not realize this fine revenue, uh it would be addressed through our variance reporting and then would be reflected into our 2027 budget as a pressure into 2027. Okay, thank you for that. And then just a quick comment around BAS. Uh part of us having a successful BIA is having parking turnover and having new customers be able to have spots. So if we have a scenario where someone comes and parks, you know, it's they pay for an hour and they're there for half a day or all day, they're taking a spot that can't be used by others to support a business. So I think we need to look at it holistically. Uh people need to pay for the parking they uh they use and then allow it to be uh vacated and then used for other people who can support businesses. And same thing at hospitals too or or wherever. Um you know, pay for the parking and then move on and let other people use it because it is a limited supply. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Casar. We have one more speaker before we go back to Councelor Clark, and that's going to be Councelor Nan. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, and just for clarity on the public record, this is about correcting people's bad behavior. Uh, this is about people who are choosing repeatedly to violate um our parking laws and folks who choose to not comply. This is I think it's a conservative speaking point these days to talk about parking fines and uh speeding as a cash grab for municipalities when the truth of the matter is this is a safety concern. This is uh a community concern. This is has economic impacts in BAS when that turnover of parking isn't taking place. So no payment at a meter would go up from $30 to $35. Exceeding time limits would go from $30 to $35. Parking in prohibited areas goes from $40 to $50. Alternative side parking violations go from $35 to $50. Why? Because when those vehicles are parked on the wrong side of the street, when our snow plows need to come through, it impacts public service consistency that every single resident in every neighborhood street deserves. that $15 is to deter people from behaving poorly and choosing to violate existing parking uh bylaws that have been in place for decades. So, it's problem of behavior that needs correcting and these fees are an attempt to do so. And then the final one that's increasing is stopping in prohibited areas going from $80 to 100. I think staff put together some reasonable increases here. I appreciate the work. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Nan. And I see that our director of planning, parking, and transportation is on the line. So, councelor Clark, we're coming back to you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I guess my my question that I had asked was, was there consultation with the business improvement area? So, I understand that Mr. Malloy may have the answer to the question. Director, you're on mute and we see your name but not your face. Director Malloy, are you with us? GM Prasad, do you have any insight into the director's whereabouts? Yes. Um, thank you for that question, Mr. Chair. Um, I did see about on the screen his video was on. Uh, let me see if he's texted me. Oh, yes, I do have some insight. Uh, he has stated that his computer has crashed. So, uh, Mr. Chair, does he have an answer for you through you to him? Could you communicate through text? Yes. I got, uh, he'll be back. He's I hope. Well, this is an important this is important information. Councelor Clark, if you want to wait, I I'm prepared to recess for 5 minutes. Uh, I'll speak to it. Um, it it's incredibly disappointing that we don't know that information. This council has made it one of our principles to engage the public. it it it's in our priorities. And so I ask these questions because I fear that we're making decisions without asking that question, without speaking at the very least to the BAS. I don't think any of our residents, Mr. Deputy Mayor, would be pleased to get a ticket because they parked in an area that was not permitted or they went over. I can tell you I paid two tickets um when my wife was in the hospital. Sorry, my when my mother-in-law was in the hospital at the general and and she was dying. Your mind goes elsewhere. You forget that you haven't put enough money in or that you got to move the car. Um but that's on me. I paid the ticket. That's on me. Did I like it? No. Was I poed? Yes. At me because I was distracted and didn't do what I was supposed to do. The second time um was when my son was in the hospital and he had five surgeries after he had been shot. And again, you my my mind was on other things. Deputy mayor, I there was a spot. I parked in the spot. I ran in the hospital and I completely forgot about my car cuz at that moment my son, my family was the most important thing to me. Not the car and not whether or not I got a ticket. I got a ticket. I'll state very clearly I paid both times but it went over the time permitted. I don't know how we can provide compassion for parking around hospitals. Most of the hospitals now are charging in excess of $20 a day. Um, and so people are, not everybody, but some people are parking on the street. And I've heard from people, $35 ticket, it's a gamble. They may not see my car. They may not come down the street. I I got free parking. We really shouldn't be encouraging that behavior. And so the last thing I'd say, Deputy Mayor, nobody around this room wants to put taxes up. The residents don't want higher taxes, but if we don't keep our penalties and our fees equitable with other municipalities, then our taxes will go up because we have to pay for the services that are needed. So, oh, and director Malloy is here now, so maybe we can get an answer about that question. So, you can ask that question again. I I'm just trying to verify that before we make a decision on this that we've we've had consultations with the BIA. So, director Mallaloy, can you explain what consultation has occurred uh through through the chair and my apologies um for the technical problems. So in terms of uh consultation, we we originally had this report going in consultation with uh exploring increasing paid parking rates. So as part of that um consultation, this was addressed. Um we has have hence uh or since that time not proposed to increase parking rates but we have notified BAS's uh the consideration of um of increasing parking fines um but not the specifics of the amounts um but there is no further details on on additional um consultation only through that original process. Thank you. May I ask another question of the mayor? um of the deputy mayor, the director um councelor Casar I think rightly suggested that in business improvement areas getting turnover on the meters is really important because that means there's more customers coming into those businesses. So is that a a a fair synopsis as to why we want to en ensure that there is movement on the street through the chair that that is correct. Um having good turnover of parking and available parking for um for various um users especially on street where there's uh limited supply. That's uh that's for sure one of the tactics that we would want to have is to make sure that there's available parking for people who want to attend. Thank you. So I'll just finish up my comments. Uh this should not be this item should not be a philosophical debate. Um the debate really should be do we add $700,000 to the taxpayers's budget? Are you taking it from reserves and next year it becomes a part of the levy or do we leave it as a user fee in this case a penalty and those that regardless of why they didn't pay why they forgot about it um it's still a penalty. We we need to keep those penalties in place and if you get to the point where it's so inexpensive then people are going to take the shot and try and park and not pay and maybe they'll get away with it. They do in Toronto even though they have heavy penalties. They talk about lost revenue from that. So I support the increase. I think it's reasonable and pragmatic. Councelor Francis. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. I I just want to say thank you to Councelor Nan. I appreciate the uh lecture on the tax and spend NDP talking points. Thank you. Uh counselor, I'm going to ask you. Okay. Point of order. Please present. Yeah. Counselor. Um, not that you said anything that would be, you know, what would he say? Deemed Yeah. unparliamentary. Thank you for that word. But what I would like to say is that um your tone and the comments made were would not be appreciated and I'd like you to take them back. You may Okay. So, listen. Here's what order order. councelor, I'm going to ask you to to resend some of those statements that you made and saying things like, "I never heard at all. I never heard NDP talking points." I think that is a allegation that has not been confirmed or shouldn't be confirmed on the chamber floor. So, so resend that part of your statement, please. I don't know what you're asking me to resend here, chair. I I just repeated exactly what the uh speaker previous uh said. She said it was a conservative talking point and I said it was an NDP talking point. Her points I just said the exact same. No, I didn't say that's not what I said. Well, I didn't NDP talking point. Can we talk to the chair, please? Yes. Go ahead, Matt. Say that. She's accusing me of saying things I didn't say. It's not what I said. Go ahead, councelor N. Thank you, Deputy Chair, and I apologize for speaking out of turn without a microphone being recognized. I appreciate that I'm asking for decorum and at the same time being very reactive. However, uh to be very clear, what was said by the counselor was that I'm a tax and spend counselor. That is what I am absolutely offended by. Deputy mayor, I engage in the budget committee's work with due diligence. I brought forward so many cost-saving solutions as well as budgetary considerations that have been in the benefit of every single taxpayer and resident in this city to have my character attacked and the work that I perform on an annual basis now for seven years in the city budget process that has been consistent full of integrity and delivering results for Hamiltonians is completely offensive and And I would write request respectfully that the counselor apologize for defaming my professionalism around this table in the budget process every year by using the words that all of my colleagues heard you say which then I'm a tax and spend counselor. I didn't say that. I actually wrote it. I could read counselor Francis. you can speak to through this to me and I would appreciate that you would share what you said. I wrote it down just so we're clear. I want to thank councelor Nan. I appreciate the lecture on the tax and spend NDP talking points. I didn't accuse her of being a tax and spend counselor. That's what I said. I have it written right here. So don't accuse me of it. I don't appreciate being accused. Point of order, counselor. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I heard both conversations and if we did our best to speak to the substance of the issue that is before us rather than philosophies of personalities of our members, things would go a lot smoother. We we need to be cautious that we don't as we enter this election season that we don't start attacking and fingering counselors. I don't always agree with everyone's statement. I don't agree with their votes sometimes. But in terms of decorum, if we actually debated the substance of the issue rather than philosophies or political viewpoints andor personalities andor motivations of other counselors, we would not have this embarrassing discussion in public. Thank you. Thank you for that. Do I get to rule on the first point of order? Thank you. So, I'm going to ask the two counselors that um I don't want to remove people from from the chambers, but I do want everyone here, as councelor Clark just said so eloquently, to respect the decorum and to not go at each other with allegations or with what we would call comments that could be construed by the receiver in a negative way. Do I have your agreement with that, Councelor Francis? Okay, I see the thumbs up. So, I'm going to rule that we move forward with that in mind and I'm not going to remove anyone from the chambers and I appreciate councelor Nan and I apologize for letting it go this far. Thank you, Councelor Kretch. Thank you. Pretty sure this is a real point of order. So before I say it, I want to say that that we are supposed to vote to allow someone to speak a second time. So I'm just putting that out there because I think that wasn't observed. No crime was committed here. But what we do is when someone wants to speak a second time at council according to the procedural bylaw, what we do is that person says, "Can I speak a second time?" And we all say, "Yeah, sounds fine to me." So I just want to make sure we're observing that because I think that I tried to say that, but actually other things started happening before I could get to that point because I think councelor Francis was speaking a second time. So just wanted to put that out there, right? Um I think it preserves our ability to debate here at committee where we need to and ratify here at council and not get into long protracted debates here. So just wanted to ask if that can be observed. Thank you. Thank you. And point noted I do remember reading earlier that we are only supposed to speak once on each issue at council and that is an error on the chair's part. I accept responsibility and for these very reasons we'll will not be slaying or like going aside from that rule anymore. Thank you. Okay, now I think we are back to um anybody any other speakers on the item and I believe we're talking 9.3. Councelor Pauls, this is my second time. So, second speaker and I did take my name out uh because I but I just wanted to say can I just uh sorry I understand we can have a vote. So, councelor Jackson has uh has put that forward. So, can we have a seconder for Okay, councelor Cooper. So, I guess do we go to a hand vote or do we go to an electronic hand vote? Okay. All those wishing to allow councelor Pauls to speak a second time at this point, please put up your hands. Okay, it looks like it's a majority. Councelor Pauls, you're up. Thank you. I just want to bring uh say again the reason why I'm voting no. Uh when we talked about this, I remember councelor Moren Wilson talking about the safety where people park when it's unsafe and uh uh the wrong side or beside a hydrant and it's important. I remember seeing the the whole thing how it starts from meters to all that. And I agree we should penalize people if they're parked in places where they shouldn't be parked. And I agree that we should increase that. My problem is is with the meters. And the reason is this. Uh I hear over and over people rather go to the mall. You know why they'd rather go to the mall? Free parking. I hear many people say why would I go on concession and shop where I have to put money in the meter and I have to worry about uh putting an hour or two hours where maybe you know I'm getting my hair done and I need three hours why would I do that so that is the reason and then I agree with you know uh about the budget 700 so I wanted to vote yes increase and also we always compare compare oursel to others. Hamilton is a little bit different. There are people here honestly telling me they can't afford things. They can't afford food. They can't afford. So just on that one where meters I did not want to increase the meter. I didn't mind where people were parking wrong side where people fling doing things that they shouldn't be doing because of safety. And councelor Maren Wilson was right. She said, you know, it's a safety place. You cannot park. Increase it. Yes. So that's why I'm voting no just on the meter issue. And I wish it was separate. So I'll be voting no. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. So we're going to go now to 9.3 and we're going to have a vote on that. And it should be electric. Electric. How about electronic? Um Councelor, did we vote on 9.1? We didn't we vote on parking? We vote on 9.1 already. Oh, sorry. Okay. One second while I get my computer back up so I can vote. Yeah. Okay. So, this will actually go to Sorry, it's going to go to 9.1 first, then we're going to go to 9.3, and then we're going to go to everything. Thank you. Is there Okay, vote was up. Okay, we're resetting. This is for 9.1. Council making for your vote. Okay, counselor's waiting for it to come up. Can you give a thumbs up? Or down. Don't want to suggest your vote. That passes 10 to four. Thank you. We're going to item 9.3. Vote is up. That also passes 10 to four. Thank you. And now for the balance. Oh, we still want to populate with the speakers list then. Is there anyone else wishing to speak to any other items other than 9.1 and 9.3 at this time? Councelor Clark. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to speak to item 10.1, the investigation of renewable energy generation as a secondary uses associated with agricultural operations. Um, I'd like to ask a question. The previous councor or council, uh, councelor Brenda Johnson, I believe was the sponsor, um, opposed wind farms in the rural area. And I believe there was a vote on it by the previous council to prohibit it. Does anyone have a recollection of that? Anybody GM? So, as chair and the mover of this motion, councelor, would you like to hear my side of the issue? You can relinquish the chair to someone else. Okay. I'll relinquish the chair to former deputy mayor, my good friend, councelor Bey. Is that true? Please proceed, counselor. Um, this motion was brought forward and it's not in any way going to compromise any primary uses for agricultural. This is a situation where we're looking at nuances um and innovative farmers who are wishing to use uh solar panels to shield uh apple trees in in in one case in order to um improve the production. So, it's in no way going to compromise any primary uses and it's an exploratory motion um asking staff to look at that because we do have situations out there where our bylaws are outdated and looking at use as agriculture and without any other uh secondary uses, it's prohibitive to the um I guess to the longevity of of farming. And so if they can find other alternative sources that actually increase increase productivity then we should as a city not get in their way and we should be a hub of innovation here in the city and that's why that motion was brought forward. Councelor Clark. Uh thank you vice chair or past chair. Um so trying to understand then I did not see anywhere again in this motion in terms of consultation with the rural community. So are we going to speak to the farmers and the rural community to get their input? Are you taking back the chair councelor Tavson or do you want to answer? It's his motion, so you should stay in the chair respectfully. Okay. Then I'll look to staff to see if there's an answer on that or the mover depending on who's best qualified to answer. Thank you very much for the question uh through the chair. Um the um whenever we're looking at investigating new policy options uh such as what is being resolved here, we would undertake consultation. So there there will be definitely a consultation component to this. Council clerk. Uh thank you for that. So I would suggest that somewhere in the motion that we should indicate that we're going to consult with the rural community because again this council we've had some experiences with passing policy and or tax policy without consulting the rural community. So I don't want to lose that again. I'd like to have a discussion with them while you're looking at this to get their input. Even if it's just the the egg and rural affair committee to get their input. So I would suggest a friendly amendment. That friendly amendment is accepted and um a comment put in that motion that we will um seek advice from the world. Thank you very much. Okay. Since you're I I think I'm taking over the speakers list now because you're still speaking to your motion and I believe that we have uh W3 councelor Alex Wilson up next please. Um thank you. Uh just uh some thanks through you acting chair to councelor Clark for the suggestion. And I think uh when councelor Tennyson proposed an agro photovoltaics kind of proposition well studied well understood there's lots of models for what that looks like and there's minimal impacts hearing that you know wind or we had a letter from a constituent I believe in w 13 talking about potentially using waste heat as a consideration I think it is really really important as especially as the scope potentially grows or maybe we make different decisions on different technologies um those impacts aren't the same as an agro photovotayic um on neighboring and there's less you know less studies there's more novelty So consultation absolutely makes sense. Um and thanks for that insight. Okay, I don't see any further speakers. The amendment has been accepted as friendly. Therefore, we'll be voting I believe sorry chair just one sec. So this was part of the minutes so was moved by pardon me here going back in my notes councelor Wang and councelor Tison is that friendly with them? I see odds. Yes. So we can treat that as a friendly amendment. So the amendment will be to clause C of the motion uh in minute item 10.1 to add the language after consultation with the A and rural affairs committee. Okay, that seems to satisfy everyone around the table. Thank you clerk for the clarification. So we'll be doing a separated vote on this item now as amended. Please indicate your vote electronically. Vote is up. And the passes unanimously and I'll turn it back to you, chair. Thank you, former deputy mayor. Appreciate it that. Now, before we go on to the balance, is there anyone else that wishes to speak to anything on 7.3? Not seeing any, let's move to the balance. Vote is up. That carries 14 to zero. Moving now to 7.4 general issues committee March 25th, 2026. Councelor Bey, may I please have a motion to receive approve the recommendations within the general issues committee open and closed minutes of March 25th, 2026 and receive the correspondence items? Yes, you may. Deputy mayor, it's my pleasure to bring this uh my secondary I hope uh will be councelor Tom Jackson to my left and that will be that the GIC minutes 260004 being the open session minutes of GIC meeting held on March 25th, item 7.4 for be received and recommendations contained there within be approved and that the closed session minutes of the GIC meeting held on the same date March 25th item 12.2 be approved as presented and remain confidential and that the following correspondence items be received. One correspondence received uh respecting report HSC26023 emergency warming center operation of Benetto community center minute item 7.7 of the GIC report. This is from Jay Bonner. Ed the hub. Uh item 7.4A. And that number two uh correspondence respecting review of housing related services governance and reporting structure. Minute item 9.2 of the GIC report from Graham Cubit. Hamilton is home. This is item 7.4B. Thank you councelor. Are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend, or vote on separately? Councelor Clark. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Tatis. I'd like to speak to item 7.4, which is the health impacts of exposure to elevated total reduced sulfur compounds in W 9. Um, I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank and show my appreciation to our public health team who did a thorough job of reviewing the information that we had provided them and asked them to review. Uh they reviewed the laws, they reviewed um the regulations, legislation, looked at the risk thresholds um for exposure to total reduced sulfur compounds and they came to the conclusion um which I agree with that the levels of the hydrogen sulfide total reduced sulfur compounds in the air did not meet the provincial ial threshold for a risk threshold. So there's no positive information in exposure to it even though the amount of total reduced sulfur compounds in the air were incredibly high. also to enlighten the community and I think it's important you know when we approve environmental compliance agreements and we put in our comments to the Ministry of Environment for businesses doing that we would expect that any of the sampling that is going on would have ramifications if they don't meet their environmental compliance agreement. In this case, the numbers are high in the landfill, but they will only enforce those numbers if it were tested by an independent air monitor outside of the landfill. So, you have to be across the road. So, if you can imagine, the ministry takes the position that anything that's produced inside the landfill stays in the landfill because it has this magic wall that goes up around all of the boundaries and it can't get out. So, you'd have to test it separately. It's absurd. If you want them to comply with their environmental compliance agreement, then the ministry should enforce the rules on the testing that is occurring inside the landfill. Um and finally what public health did uh in their statement is they made um it very clear that people who have been exposed to the hydrogen sulfide over a persistent long period of time will in fact experience health impacts. nausea, headache, migraines, bronchitis, asthma, and a host of other things, not to mention the psychosocial impact. So, all of this is evidence to show that what the landfill company has done has really hurt the residents that are in close proximity to the landfill around 3 km. Uh finally, last night I met with uh the lawyers that are representing um the stand group, which is Stand Up for Stony Creek, and um they are proceeding with um litigation against GFL. and anyone that wants to be involved in that litigation, if they could reach out to the shut down the dump group page in Facebook, all of the information is there and you have to be within 3 km of the landfill and so that will continue. Um, and I appreciate everything that public health has done and our senior leadership team has done on this issue. It has been a nightmare for the residents and quite frankly a horrifying nightmare for me. Thank you. Thanks for speaking to that important item in your ward counselor. Um are there any other counselors that wish to share any items or speak to any items on AFNA or sorry on general issues committee. Okay, we're going to go to the vote. for GIC. Vote is up. Councelor Clark, anything? I I neglected to thank this August body. Council has supported all of my motions unanimously through this process. They have been with the residents all the way and I want to express their gratitude to you. They they are incredibly pleased with the work that council has done on this. Thank you. Thank you for those follow-up comments. And that passes 14 to zero. We're on to 7.5 AFNA 26004 audit finance and administration committee March 26 20 26 councelor Bey may I please have a motion to receive and approve the recommendations within the audit finance and administration committee minutes of March 26 and I just want everyone to note that there was um a request to go into close session during this AFNA uh meeting. So we are only considering the open session items at this time. Thank you. Thank you uh deputy mayor. Uh it's moved by myself and seconded by vice chair Mike Spataphora that AFA260004 being the minutes of the audit finance and administration committee held on Thursday March 26 item 7.5 be received and the recommendations contained therein be approved and that B the following correspondence item be received which is correspondence respecting the motion concerning eco and energy self audit kits for ward for residents and this was received from a resident I'm not going to unfortunately try to attempt to pronounce the name. I apologize. Um, but this has been attached for the public to view and um I'm hoping for universal adoption of this. Thank you. And thank you for that. Um, are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend or have voted on separately? And we have councelor clerk. Uh, thank you, deputy mayor. Item 8.2, to which is the community leazison group for immigrants and refugees. Um I spoke against this at committee. Um but apparently I voted in favor of it. So I'd like to correct that. I I have not supported the the change to community leazison groups. I think it is losing um the effect that the advisory committees had in presenting advice to council. Now, it all goes through staff. Um, and it remains to be seen how this process is going to work out, but I've opposed it. So, I just like to be recorded as opposed to 8.2. Thank you. And is that specifically today or referring back? And we'll go to the clerk for that. I'll advise there. It was Sorry. Sorry, councelor clerk. Let's let's go to councelor clerk first. Councelor Clark, go ahead. Um, Deputy Mayor, to my understanding with our procedural rules, I can't change a vote that occurred at a previous committee. I can only correct my vote here. Right. You had That's right. You have 5 minutes at that time. Okay. So, thanks. We'll correct it here. C. Uh, we'll go to the clerk now. I'll I'll actually advise that uh this was one of the ones where we had two votes on it in the committee meeting and this was an administrative error in the printing of the minutes. So you did vote in opposition to it at committee during the second vote. So we will correct the minutes to properly reflect that. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Okay. So um are there any items again that anyone would like? I'm not seeing the list populate. Okay. So basically at this time uh please indicate your vote now on the minutes. separate vote. Oh, sorry. I didn't pick that up. A separate vote on 8.2. And we'll do that first. This will be a separate vote on 8.2. And that carries 13 to1. And now we're going to go to the balance of the minutes for another vote. And the vote is up. That vote carries 14 to zero. Now we're on to 7.6. Emergency community services committee. Councelor Clark. May I please have a motion to receive and approve the recommendations within the emergency and community services community minutes of March 26, 2026. Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yes, you may. It's moved by myself, seconded by councelor Esther Paul's that ECS26-002 being the minutes of the emergency community services committee meeting held on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Item 7.6 be received and the recommendations contained therein be approved. Are there any items within the minutes members would like to speak to, amend, or have voted on separately? And I do see councelor Jackson, you have the floor. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Tatterson. 8.1 and 8.3. Should I do them chronologically? Yeah, let's go with 8.1 at this time. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Um, I was um at city business uh at during this meeting last Thursday, the emergency community services meeting, and I'm supportive of 8.1, which is the hate and violence prevention response update. Um, an excellent report and presentation I heard that was brought forward by Director Chase and under General Manager Grace Mater. I just want to say, Deputy Mayor Tatter, that as we are working towards our utopia of eradicating discrimination, hatred, bigotry everywhere and have a respectful world that we can love and support each other in spite of differences. And I talk about cultural, racial, religious differences. I also am getting a bit concerned with some of the language that is being expressed publicly about our community overall and it doesn't matter to me the source but it's been quoted and so it's in the public domain and I'm just getting a bit concerned Deputy Mayor Tatter to paint our community that we are a hateful community And I know wherever I go in my ward, I'll speak for my ward, but I do traverse this city from time to time. And I can tell you unless people are chameleons and are very very clandestine, the overwhelming majority of my constituents are not hateful people. Um, I don't like the fact that the terminologies that are being used from certain sources are suggesting that hate is spreading everywhere and that it's growing. Yeah. Let's deal with those that let's deal with those, Deputy Mayor Tatter, that um that are spreading poison in our community. Let's deal with that directly. And through the criminal code and through police services, they should be dealing with that directly. And municipally, we can send a message. I'm good with that. But I'm just getting a little uncomfortable. And I will not allow, at least for my East Mound community, for any of my residents to feel like suddenly they may have a hateful bone in their body. I was at a wonderful recreation center reopening this past Saturday, 300 plus people. Not a single person said to me, "By the way, Tom, you know what? It's it's terrible what's going on in our city with regards to this topic." Yeah, that's a small microcosm, but I just want to get that on the record, Deputy Mayor Tatison, as we're doing more to pursue um justice in our city. I never will allow my community, at least on the East Mountain and for many people I know across the entire city, to feel at all guilty that they're doing something wrong towards other cultures or religions. Otherwise, I'm very much supporting 8.1. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Tatterson. Thank you for those comments, councelor. We're going to go to councelor Kretch. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I missed my mistake. My mistake. It's actually councelor Clark in the queue. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, I support what we're doing in terms of item 8.1, the hate and violence prevention and response update. I would like to thank staff for the work that they are doing and the continued consultation. I'd like to thank HARKC, the Hamilton Anti-Racism Center, who who who has done a remarkable job in short order to um receive reported hate incidents uh and and report on them publicly and to educate people in the broader community. Um they're an organization that is doing an awful lot with only $190,000 from the city annually. Um so I I I want to thank them. I think Council Jackson is is bang on. Uh Hamilton is um overall a very loving community, a very generous community, very charitable community. um they care for their neighbors when something happens. Um everyone's running to help people. That's the Hamilton that we know. But it does not negate the fact that there are groups in Hamilton who are trying to change the culture of Hamilton and who are luring uh young men to different groups that are really hate prolific. They they are they are truly teaching hatred to races, to creeds, religions, cultures. Um, and they talk about Canada being white only. And that that was never the Canada that I knew growing up. And my community is much more diversified now. and we celebrate in my community the different cultures that are present in our community, the different religions that are present. Um, and that's what we need to continue to push. Um, I I think councelor Jackson is bang on when people start talking about the hate capital of Canada. We did not designate ourselves that a different group did that. Um, but we are conscious of it. We are conscious when people are protesting outside a synagogue or when synagogues are getting shot at or when temples are burned to the ground. Councelor Jackson was on council when when that horrible thing happened up in in the Glen Brook area. Um and and the hatred that is being spewed at Muslim ladies who are simply out grocery shopping and people are taking the time to to attack verbally. Those are the things that we need to draw out. Those are the things that need to be prosecuted by the police. And with the new changes to the criminal code that is now before the Senate, the bill C9 has gone to the Senate, I would expect that that's going to happen in short order. Um, but if we're not careful, if we, what was the old expression? Um, evil will succeed when good men do nothing. Something to that effect. So, if we sit back and it's not affecting us, so we'll be quiet. It just keeps coming. It keeps growing. So, we have to speak up. That's our job as counselors. And and I think this program is great. And I want to thank GM Mater and her entire team, uh, Director Chase for putting this together. Thank you. Thanks, Councelor Clark for identifying that radical elements do exist in our society and they do need to be addressed. Councelor Cretch, you're next. I think I share the sentiment that majority of people statistically speaking of course are not people who are out there engaged in white supremacist racist homophobic activity. We all know that it's the case and that could be said literally to every single motion, every single item here. the majority of people are doing something, but a minority of individuals absolutely have an impact on what's happening. And to suggest there's not a rise of this behavior or it's not growing is ridiculous. In this ward alone, in the last three weeks, there have been incidents that have happened in public spaces that have been definitely been white supremacist activity. In my time as in the city downtown, this this behavior has grown. I travel to other Ontario cities and Canadian cities as regularly as I can. I've lived in nine other Ontario cities. It is worse here than it is in other Ontario cities. I know that's not nice to know or nice to say. We're not talking about a massive movement of people doing it either. We're saying proportionately using percentages. The percentage of incidents happen here. I think also it's a mistake to totally look at this from the perspective of policing. This isn't about what's a crime. The Criminal Code of Canada sets a very strange and a very high bar for what meets a hate crime. You have to have all this evidence. The crown has to prosecute something. It's an elaborate complex issue. I know the federal government is right now trying to look at changing some of those laws. But what we're talking about, what we're experiencing in communities is that these these incidents, these incidents of racism, uh, anti-semitism, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, those incidents are occurring regardless of whether or not the police are doing anything about it. They're still happening here in our communities. They happened right out front of city hall. They happened in Gore Park. There was a a community uh you can call it uh hate march through my neighborhood recently. that put a lot of people in my neighborhood in a very threatening position, a march. When the Pride report came out in response to what happened in 2019 by Bergman, one of the things he listed in there was a long a long list of things saying, "Listen, there's all kinds of ways the police can intervene that don't have to do with hate crime. They can mischie them." But I I when we had this discussion at the committee, I said this directly in a room full of everyone there, including people from police, saying we have to change what we're doing in this city to address the gaps, right? People are are not living 9 to5 uh only. They live also 5 to9 and onwards and onto the weekend. It turns out and we don't have a system in place right now to fill all the gaps on the weekend when these kinds of incidents occur. We just don't. Um and again, some things don't rise to the level of a hate crime federally. What do we do when it doesn't rise to the level of a hate crime federally? I commend anyone who's saying we want to speak out about this. What I'll tell you though is we need to find a way to do that collectively and not just sitting around here talking to ourselves, which is primarily what happens here. I mean, thousands aren't watching what we're saying. So, how do we get out there in the streets and talk to people and meet them where they're at and let them know that we care about this issue, that we support them, and we don't want them to experience this anymore in our city? How do we do that? Because collectively, as a group, we have failed to do that. So, how do we do it? I've been on the news countless times when these things happen, speaking out about it. I've written uh op-eds on the subject. I've written on every social media platform that exists on the subject. And I'm trying to get out there and do that. And when things happen, I contact Hark, work with HARK. We try to figure out how to deal with situations when there's racist graffiti or hateful graffiti. And maybe it's not happening as much in the areas you're in, but I can tell you before I was a counselor, I remember being on a march of some kind where we were trying to raise awareness for an incident that happened in Binbrook. A pretty pretty awful incident that happened there. and a bunch of us from the other parts of the city came together and had a peaceful march to say, "Hey, there shouldn't be also shouldn't be hateful things happening in Binbrook either." And proportionately speaking, no, the majority of W 6 residents, Tom, you're right, aren't aren't doing this kind of thing. But there are people in W 6 who are for sure, statistically speaking, even in W 6. Um, I will say to you that because of the density of downtown and because of how close we all are to one another and how um, you know, we're all we're all living in a very dense area. The impacts are different here. So, I'm speaking about this maybe more passionately than others are or speaking about it because incidents occur here more often, but the impact that we see uh, primarily here in the lower city is felt a little bit more differently because people are u, they can't get away from it. There's no extra space to alleviate themselves from that. their walk to work, their walk to school, their neighborhood. Um, when they're there and they see these symbols or they see this hatred, they see this violence happening or our marches are there, they feel scared, they feel trapped, and they feel isolated. And we don't have as many green spaces or other places around the rest of the city, people to go to get away from these things. And then they show up in our green spaces in our parks in W 3 and, you know, do demonstrations. So, I think there's a lot to be said here. I have a motion coming forward, as you probably all know, that's going to try to tackle some of these issues. And I really appreciate HARK and everybody else in the community who reached out, people from the Queer Justice Project at the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, our staff, everyone recognizes, right, that this is an issue and there are lots of gaps. So that's where we are right now to be honest with the public about where the city's at. We have few tools at our disposal, but we need to do a better job of coordinating with everybody about this to make sure every resident who lives here gets that the city cares and gets every one of us cares about this. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Kretch. gonna move to councelor Alex Wilson. Yeah, I really do appreciate that through this report and through some allocation of funding the city is I think ident again exactly what councelor Kcher said moving forward on closing some of those identified gaps. Um I I certainly think there's more resourcing that can be done and I I know that's part of our community safety wellbeing plan is to work with multiple levels of government to fund the necessary work we do. I think just maybe this is a helpful example. Um, a 200 plus year old tree in the Dundas driving park was defaced by a white supremacist group uh over the Labor Day weekend. At the same time, uh, there was a rally at Labor Day weekend in the Niagara region um, by the same group. Uh, these things do happen outside of downtown. There are incidents that go on all across our city. Graffiti is something I'm sure we've all had experience with dealing with as counselors. I think the the piece here is this idea that by talking about these uh violences against our collective safety, violences against our community, we are in some way undermining the community is in itself one of the things that keeps people silent. I know we our office hosted a debrief uh when there was a a bullying incident in the driving park on a separate issue. Um some family members wanted and some community members wanted to have a debrief. uh there was youth involved uh and wanted to have that conversation in community about how do we ensure that this park is a safe space for queer and trans youth in the community where they're not going to be subject to bullying and having a community conversation about it. The most common sentiment in that meeting was people felt like there's never a place to talk about these issues. That when they go on to Facebook and they say something happened, they were overwhelmed with people saying,"Well, why are you trying to say that our community is not a nice place to be? Why are you trying to make why are you trying to spread this negativity around our community?" And the parents, let alone the younger folks who maybe are also seeing that conversation, are completely left out of the fact that they were the victims of the violence there and are being now told, "Don't talk about it. Don't don't share that. that just makes us all feel bad that it's happening. Hamilton has a hate problem. So does Kitchener Waterlue. So does Toronto. So do other places. But it's also worth noting that it looks different here in some ways. That the organizations, the people involved are unique, are different um and sometimes have different platforms or different organizing roles. I think uh Diagolon for example is a group that is mostly doing its work in the Hamilton Niagara region. Like that's a different different than what's going on in Kitchener Waterlue. will have different responses, different groups, different messaging, different ways of organizing. I want to thank the work of the CBC and other independent journalists happening across the country looking at the role of fight clubs and this kind of third wave of organizing happening in far-right spaces that's really changing how our communities acknowledge, you know, even in these private spaces where groups are happening. It's real and the actions that the city is taking, I think, are good steps forward. Are we going to solve problems? No. And overnight, no. I think there's more work to be done. And this is initial conversations. This is initial resourcing. This is a beginning to come back with some more work. But I think at step one, we have to be able to admit when there's a problem and being talking about the fact that there's a problem. You know, it should be the people who are causing the violence in community that feel that regret that feel that shame, not folks who are not a part of it, who are feeling shame that it happened. I think that shame result, that shame feeling is really normal to feel. But we have to, I think, move past it and feel that, you know, our community norms were violated there too. We should be angry about these because when these things happen, it's not just something to kind of say, "Oh, that was unfortunate." But, you know, most people don't do that. Most people are better. These are things that do deserve addressing because when we don't address them, those feelings that I can't talk about this, that this isn't the space to do it, that maybe I don't deserve to feel safe here. Those are the thoughts that bubble up, that continue to stop people from accessing the support or from reporting incidents or from sharing their stories with us. so we have a better understanding of what hate looks like in our city and how we can collectively respond to it. I want to thank work for the staff uh thank staff for the work they did on this report and I'm sure uh as future report backs come uh you know we also need to have resourcing conversations about how we're continuing to make sure that we're achieving outcomes. Thank you councelor Wilson. Councelor Paul, is this still on 8.1? Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you through the chair. As we were speaking, I thought of a quote that says, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going." And I'm thinking about um um we've talked about this last term, we're talking about this term, and it seems like now we're the hate city. I think about the population of uh 600,000 people, and I'm like councelor Paul's. I I think one bad apple says gets the whole bush show bad and I think they are people that are hateful and those are the ones we have to make sure you know we we reprimand or do something about it but I'm also talking about we talk about demonstrations most of the people that come in rallies and demonstration I know they're from outside of Hamilton you know so a lot of them so to say the city of Hamilton is the hate capital and we keep saying and saying and saying and I think um I can understand why this spark has as a fire now and uh we're in it. We're all in it. So um I just also I support this of course I don't want hate anywhere but you know we can't control the heart of human beings some you know it's evil and uh we can't really control that but uh I just want to say as a whole I look and I agree with council cr up on the mountain uh there might be people that you know feel hateful towards But majority majority of the people out of a what population of 600 there are very few in my you know uh understanding but it's the demonstration I think the demonstrations come from other cities and want to cause problems here in Hamilton. So thank you. Thank you councelor Paul's 8.1 councelor Nan. Okay. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and thank you to staff uh for responding to the request to identify what role the municipality can take to address hate in our community, hate in our public spaces, hate on city facilities, um and ensure that we're proceeding with public service excellence as it relates to training and awareness. The landscape continues to evolve when it comes to hate, white supremacy, extremism, and it's a duty and obligation for every public service uh entity and uh sector to continue being up with the times. You know, back in the day, for a long time, maybe the hate symbol most visible was the swastika. Since then, our community repeatedly across the entire city, you know, previous references to Binbrook, references to Dundas, references to the mountain where we've seen Confederate flags flying on people's properties, where we have seen the SS, where we have seen 1488, where we have seen the number 13. I will continue naming all the hate symbols because chances are people around this table don't even realize the number 13, the number 1488 has any significance. So, here we are as a group of public leaders around this table as as council members, but also on the bench, those who provide public service to our community in an environment where these symbols are directly attacking the humanity of other people, denying their right to exist. in fact signaling very violently that they should be eradicated. They should be killed, that they should be subject to other forms of unspeakable violence. Yeah. Dramatic pause because it needs to sink in. We can't diminish what people are experiencing in our communities. If it's happening in W 6, if it's happening in W 7, it matters to me. If it's happening in Ben Burke, if it's happening in Dundas, that matters to me. It's happening in Ancaster, it's happening in Stony Creek, that matters to me. Perhaps, yes, as a racialized woman who's had to fight white supremacy and white nationalism since being a child. But it shouldn't take having to have those personal experiences to do something about it and repeatedly speak up about it. That's what this work is about. This work is about taking the labor out of those who have been the repeated victims of hate and extremism and say as a municipality we recognize that as a level of government there's something else that we could be doing to ensure safety, a better sense of security and at the very least more informed public about what is happening here so that we can make sure that we are allocating the resources that are necessary while also holding other levels of government accountable when they require us to go into the long labor of putting together a community safety and well-being plan with zero funding associated to it. a requirement by the province but absolutely no funding attached to it. While our communities continue to face this type of violence, this type of ideology, this type of taking advantage and um dehumanizing when we are constantly working towards making sure that this community can shine with love, respect, and the services and freedoms that we all are entitled to. So, a step in the right direction. I look forward to the work continuing to happen. I look forward to the notice of motion that councelor Crutch tabled and the amendments that might come forward once it's finalized to the next ECS committee. Uh but just really really want to emphasize um that we can't diminish it by saying that there's a few bad apples. We have to acknowledge the truth and uh when these incidences occur, it's an obligation for all of us around the table to stand up in our leadership on it. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Council McMe 8.1. Thanks. Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Um, I need to remind myself that when things like this come up, u my tendency to not speak out um needs to be overcome. We we do need to speak. Um, so a couple of observations. Um, I believe it's easier to raise a strong, healthy child than it is to fix a broken adult. So, I think I like the I like the thrust on public education. And, uh, as the song goes, teach your children well. That's really important. um particular when we are a city that wants to be the best place to raise kids, let alone egen place. Um we need to do everything we can to never return hate for hate or anger for anger or hurt for hurt. um uh while at the same time being sure to to deny the deniers. For example, those that like to continue to continue to claim that the a Holocaust in one of any many forms didn't exist. be it be it Armenian or or Jewish or or Islamic, whatever it is, we need to deny the deniers who say that. Um and we need to do that because if nothing else um is readily apparent um or should be readily apparent is that tolerance ought always to begin or doesn't begin at the point of difference. It begins at the sameness. We we have humanity as a base and um and those who want to degrade um or diminish anyone um cannot I guess if tolerance intolerance begins anywhere maybe should begin with anyone who's intolerant. Um anyhow, I I have this u as I think everyone around this table uh does um uh concern about building strong, healthy, caring communities and we need to start somewhere. I really like I really do like the idea of uh of making some fiscal investment in public education. I think that's uh that's the answer. Um and it's tough, I tell you. Little kids pick stuff up. uh all too quickly that they uh we should be careful that they don't pick up. So those are my comments. I I'm thanks counselor. Looking forward to councelor Gretch's motion. Thank you. I'm going to uh pass the chair to former deputy mayor bey and make some comments. I just want to remind everybody that each of us, we're all here and we're all in a different place on the continuum in our learning about hate and its effects on society. Um, symbols, numbers, graffiti, flags, words can all affect people in our communities differently. And that's important to note. I want to say that we're in leadership positions here and and in our position, we're all going to bring our own perspective. We're going to bring our own lived experience. We're going to bring our own understandings to the table. I'm glad that everyone's done this in a respectful manner because we all are in different spots in our growth. And I think the important piece is that we listen carefully to each other and hear each other's words. and help that make us individually grow in our understandings of this very important matter. So from my perspective I come to it because I was a former principal and we had a proc program called learn disrupt rebuild where we actually had to confront issues and that was the disrupt part. The learning part was understanding that what was harmful. And then the rebuilding part was the part that the city has to embark on now in the point of making our city the best it can be for everyone. The child, the marginalized, everyone, adults, seniors, again, everyone. Everyone's going to come at it with a different understanding. Let's be patient. with the growth of others if they're not in that spot. And let's make sure that we always address our comrades in a respectful way because again, we are the leaders of the city and people look to us to be examples. Thank you. Turn it back to you, Deputy Mayor. Okay, I think we're going to go to 8.3. And I think councelor Jackson is up or 8.2. two. It was 8.3. Thank you for your memory. Uh, Deputy Mayor Tatter. Um, this is about the seniors advisory committee transition to a community liaise group and as councelor Clark had said earlier uh when the final debate and decision I think it was a 106 vote uh typical 106 vote of this term of council but regardless uh was to go in the new direction of the community liaise group. I was strongly opposed, especially on behalf of the seniors. Um, however, I'm respectful of the majority decision, Deputy Mayor Tatter, and again, uh, being on city business last Thursday, I missed this vote. I'm going to go along with it. And I want to especially thank uh director Holly Odiardi and her new team that have taken over uh from uh former great uh project manager Lisa Machuk, her new team. I want to thank uh Brian and and Jacquellyn Durov um for the accommodation. Deputy Mayor Tatterson, the seniors advisory committee were requesting that they could stay status quo to the end of this term and then whoever's here next year starting January 1st, they would reconstitute as a CLG. I like councelor Clark uh I'll be a doubting Thomas uh whoever's here next term but for the at least the remainder of this term I'll still be a doubting Thomas as to whether that is a better direction and with uh the accountability that in my humble opinion will be lost with the direct connection that the former volunteer advisory committees had with this body when they presented and brought their annual reports which will no longer be the case by a volunteer-driven group. It may come in the future from the department, but not directly from the appointed volunteer group. But I just want to thank director uh Holly Odiardi and her team for the accommodation. The new um the new structure won't kick in till January 1st. That was respectful of the seniors advisory committee wishes that councelor Paul's and I serve on. And I want to tremendously thank with seven eight months to go uh chair Penelopey Petri and the other 18 members of the senior's advisory committee. I'll tell you if you look back on the records of advisory committees, I challenge any of the others that may even come close to the recommendations and above all uh the implementation of what they brought forward working with the council on aging, the age friendly plan that the city council adopted back in 2014. That was part of our mission statement which was added because of the senior advisory committee's unanimous recommendation that we age successfully in our community. That was added because of their great advocacy. Um I'm saddened by the fact it's going to be lost. But I just want to congratulate Penelopey and her entire team. By the way, they have served now it will be almost two full terms because if you recall at the beginning of this term, we kaibosed and put on hold any of the selection committee normal traditional appointee process. And so the members that stayed over from last term graciously to their credit hung on and they have been one continuum of eight years of service on behalf of seniors especially those deputy mayor Tatison that are less mobile and shutins and I just want to congratulate them for their work and I'm glad they'll stay this way till December 31st. Thanks deputy mayor Tatison. Thank you counselor. I just wanted to comment that always healthy to carry a small level of doubt of doubt in every decision we make because it helps us grow. Thank you. It was a compliment. It was a compliment. Okay. Are there Okay, councelor clerk, you're up. Uh just uh requesting a separate vote. I believe it was 8.3. Okay. So, separate vote on 8.3. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other items that people want to raise? Okay. So, at this point, I think what we're going to do is we're going to have a separate vote on 8.3 and then we're going to vote to do the balance. So, this one will be on 8.3 seniors advisory commission transition to a community leazison group and that is up for a vote now. Okay, that carries 12 to2. Thank you. So, there are no items for consideration, so we're going to go to motions. Oh, sorry. So, actually, we're actually going to go to the balance of the motions, sorry, or the sorry, the balance of the items in the minutes. And the vote is up now. And that carries 14 to zero. So for the second time, there are no items of consideration. We're going to go to motions. And these are some housekeeping ones. We're going to go to 9.1. Housekeeping amendment to council's decision on November 19th, 2025, respecting item 9.2 two of the November 10th, 2025 public works meeting PW25013 concerning report PW250 transit standardization and single source procurement of services equipment and parts citywide. Councelor Nan, would you please present your motion and advise your seconder? Happy mayor moved by myself and seconded by vice chair Casar. Um this is a housekeeping item as will the next motion. It really is about uh several of the legal names of the vendors uh listed in the reports accordingly uh need to be corrected in order to process the approved funding. That's all this is really about and uh the details in the motion. If there's any questions, staff are happy to respond. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that. And your seconder was councelor Wang. Oh, councelor Casar, sorry. Okay. Discussions on this motion. We're going to go to councelor clerk. Uh, thank you, Deputy May. Can I just get clarification from our staff? It's indicating that appendix A and appendix B were revised. Um, I don't see the revision, so I'm trying to understand exactly what we did or what you're proposing. The bench is conferring. Could we go to Nancy on the screen? Oh, okay. Acting general manager story. Yeah, thanks very much. Uh, Angela Story, director of waste management acting for GM Jackie Kennedy today. Uh, I do see uh, director Perser on the on the screen there, so I can pass it to her, noting that it's a uh, a vendor name issue that is being updated. So go ahead, uh, Director Purser. Uh, thank you, Nancy Purser, director of transit. Uh, this motion, the housekeeping is um clarifying a few vendor names that were um in inadvertently um added incorrectly to the original report and have been revised based on um updates we've received through um purchasing. Um, and understanding the legal vendor name, there's been changes to, uh, five of them, I believe. Um, thank you. And so, I'll ask this question again. I know I it's kind of redundant. I still have concerns about standardization and single source procurement because once you pick a product and that company knows that you have picked their product and you have not chosen any other product, the price on that product will naturally incline. It'll go up and so how do we protect ourselves from that situation? Uh to the chair that's a a great question. There are um for transit and our standardization uh we generally are um standardizing on items that are under warranty um to ensure that we can maintain the warranty on the item um that we buy. um also you know original uh manufacturer parts on all of our rolling stock um to ensure the integrity of the vehicles. Uh we also when uh part we we continue to monitor for when parts are no longer pri uh proprietary and we will then go out to tender to find the best price. So we are constantly monitoring to ensure that um you know we the the product or the the um item should be standardized and removing it once we find out there are alternate options to purchase. Um thank you. And so the question is how do we mitigate against a company who knows that we have selected them and they gouge us on their prices because they know that we're not going out to procurement. So how do we do that? I keep seeing these motions coming in standardizing single source procurement. Um, and I know from experience in talking with vendors that deal with governments, once they've been selected, that's when the prices go up because they know the government can afford it. So, I I I'm at a loss here. How are we protecting the taxpayers from increases in costs because we are not going out to tender. So uh through through the chair I can only speak for transit. Um again we are standardizing or single sourcing only on the items that we know we can only buy. We can't guarantee that we're getting the lowest price, but it's the only place we can buy from um until such a time that it's no longer proprietary. Uh and unfortunately, I I don't have any other answer for that. So, last question, how long is that? How long are we going to continue to use these standardized vendors for their parts? How long are we required to? If you're saying it's warranty based, then shouldn't they be providing those parts? I'm I'm truly confused by this. So through the chair, we we will review um every year and um we will actually um formalize a new standardization request every three years to come to council. Um, and when I say it's under warranty, it's it's what we we how we fix and maintain a bus um that is in warranty to ensure that that warranty is maintained for the period. Okay. Uh, Deputy Mayor, um, I just wish to be recorded as opposed to this. Um, I'm really growing more and more concerned with the this process, not just and I'm not picking on transit, forgive me, I'm not. Um, but we have seen so many of these. Um, and I'm really concerned about how we're approaching this. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Clerk. Councelor Crretch. This a question for the clerk. And I understand everyone has a right to speak to things when they're on the agenda sort of broadly, but in this room of council, I've noticed we've lingered on amendments or housekeeping amendments quite a bit. My understanding is that the housekeeping amendment in front of us is about changing some names that are official. That's it. This is not about impacting the policy. We'd have to have a vote to reconsider if we wanted to change the actual report. Is that right? Uh so through you chair, that's correct. If you were going back on the original decision, that would be a reconsideration. In this case, nothing is changing in terms of the decision, just in terms of the names of the the companies that are on record, right? So, this is not about the actual substance of the report itself in terms of reconsidering that. My question to you is about the procedural bylaw. I it escapes me at the moment. Apologies, exactly where it says this. I believe it's as motions are going forward through the process to council or as we're ratifying minutes, clerks are able to change things for housekeeping reasons. So if there's a word wrong, a comma wrong, a spelling wrong, a name wrong, we can just clerks can just change that information to make sure it's conforms with what we're supposed to do. So when I see the word housekeeping in front of the word amendment here, the first thing I think is well the procedial bylaw kind of speaks to the fact that frankly we can do housekeeping amendments on our own and don't require them to come to council. So then I get confused, right? So is it that we need to clarify language in the procedural bylaw in which case I'll come to the governance review subcommittee but if it's housekeeping and truly it is housekeeping it doesn't need to be here. So can you explain that to me because that's what it's called. So through you chair I don't know the specifics of this one and I know it has been a bit of a process uh or or a procedure as to how we've been doing this in the past. Um it is a more substantial change I think in some of these circumstances. Um, it also depends on perhaps how far along we are in the process of some of that work as to whether or not the recommendation is to come back to council. Happy to take it away just to look at it a little more in-depthly to see if we can better define what is truly housekeeping that is within our purview under the bylaw versus what needs to be coming to council. Yeah. So maybe we just want to amend the title of this. If it's not housekeeping, it's not housekeeping, right? If it's an amendment, it's an amendment. So I would say that if anything on the agenda today needed to be here, it probably isn't housekeeping. Is that a fair assessment? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Please, please, if you could do that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. So, clerk's going to take that back. Okay. Councelor Nan, Deputy Mayor, do I need to seek uh permission to speak a second time because I introduced the motion? I didn't speak to it initially. I just tabled it. Councelor McMe is going to motion that and that's seconded by Councelor Casar. Hand vote. Okay, that's enough. Thank you. Thank you. um through you, Deputy Mayor. I appreciate the concerns being raised by councelor Clark, but I do I do believe that that should be within a policy discussion. Um I think, you know, if councelor Clark wanted to bring forward um a resolution or a motion that speaks to reviewing the policy to address the concerns he's flagging, I think that would be appropriate. My concern is not approving uh the change of a name of a vendor that would otherwise prevent the municipality from fulfilling its contractual obligations to a vendor who's already begun doing service delivery for our organization. So from that perspective um just wanted to in the spirit of the dialogue that's happened earlier in today's meeting to just help clarify the decision that's on the table so that we can all proceed in a way that enables a corporation to fulfill its mandate and duties. Okay, thank you. And I see that councelor Clark now wants to speak a second time. So, we're going to have to have a vote for him. So, councelor Jackson and councelor Clark support that hand vote. One, two, three, four, five, six. Is that's enough? Go ahead, councelor Clark. Silly process to approve people wanting to speak a second time. I simply want to um properly accept the admonishment from councelor Cretch and councelor Nan. Both of them are 100% correct. Um my vigor and vim with regards to this process where we're dealing with standardize and when we're no longer going through a procurement process uh got the better of me u but they are correct. We are simply changing a name in it and the decision on the policy is a separate matter. Um so thank you both. I appreciate it and thank you councelor Clark for acknowledging that. Um I don't see anybody else populating the list now. So is there's no more discussion on this. Let's have the vote. Road is up. That's carried. 13 to zero. We're on to 9.2. Housekeeping amendment to item two of the public works committee report 2301 respecting the standardization of original equipment manufacturer for parts assets playground spray pads ball diamonds and benches citywide which was approved by council on November 13th 2023. Councelor Nan, would you please present your motion and advise us of your seconder? Happy to do so. Deputy mayor moved by myself and again seconded by vice chair councelor Casar for the public works committee. Same scenario. Uh it is correcting a vendor name in order to ensure that they could be paid for works um uh completed or in progress. Thank you. Thank you very much. Not seeing anybody populate the list. Okay, let's move to a vote now. Please indicate your vote. The vote is up. That carries 13 to zero. On to our third housekeeping amendment to item four of the audit finance and administration committee report 211022 respecting investing in city roads and sidewalks infrastructure with Canada community building funds which was approved by council on December 15, 2021. Councelor Spataphor, would you please present your motion and advise us of your seconder? There we go. Thank you, chair. Moved by myself, seconded by councelor Tom Jackson. Uh, as you just said, this is an amendment um to a I moved a motion at public works about some road resurfacing and sidewalk work. Uh, this motion allows me to use the CCBF funds that are uh tied to W 14. And the only amendment here is to add uh Goldman Street from Green uh Green Cedar to Gwood and to use the money uh that's in the CB CCBF account for W 14. So thank you support. Any comments? Not seeing anybody. We'll have the electronic vote now. Please indicate your vote. It's up. And that carries 14 to zero. 9.4 Realignment of Community Funding Commitments for Ancaster Memorial Arts Center Construction Project W 12. Councelor Casar, would you please present your motion and advise us of your seconder? Thank Thank you, Deputy Mayor Tatterson. It's seconded by Councelor Wang. Uh, this is a motion to formally recognize community funding contributions as per the agreement between the city and the Ancaster Society for the Performing Arts, which operates with the name Ancaster Memorial Arts Center. I'll just summarize the whereases. Um, this facility was built in finished in September 2022. So, three and a half years, hundreds of performances, a dozen or more community groups using it. It's a fabulous community asset. The community had committed to $5 million in fundraising. A million of that was from naming rights to be paid over 10 years. That's on track. Uh, 4 million was to be raised by the community through various efforts. And 3.5 million has already been paid to the city for it. And this is dealing with some of the remainder uh that is owed from the community to the city. Uh there were there's a history of this facility. There were some motions that required AAC to take on early on child care and family center which wasn't possible. Uh so that's being dealt with in here. U also the group leading AAC led efforts to raise $1.1 million from feds the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund. And part of this motion is going to address how that money is attributed, part of it to the community fundraising commitment. So if I get to uh the details of it, uh the resolution is that the general manager of finance and corporate services be authorized to enter into agreement with Ancaster Society for the Performing Arts Corporation, otherwise known as AAC, as an operating uh as an operator, in a form satisfactory to the city solicitor to effect the following terms and conditions. One, that the city of Hamilton acknowledges the efforts of AAC in successfully applying for a federal cultural spaces grant and receiving $1.1 million and these funds be acknowledged as forming part of the community funding commitment and applied as follows. One, $270,000 to be applied to project overages. Two, $300,000 to be applied to the best start initiatives reserve number 112218. And three, that the balance of $530,000 be distributed between the city 75% or $397.5,000 and to the community funding commitment 25% or $132,000. That AAC have no further requirement to accommodate early on child and family center at the Ancaster Memorial Arts Center. And three, that the Ancaster the Ancaster Memorial Arts Center wave any future any and all future claims against the city related to the community funding commitment. And finally, clause B, in recognition of AAC's early notice of dispute to these matters, that the general manager of finance and corporate services uh be authorized to wave any related interest accumulated on the AAC account 620 since 2022 estimated at just over $56,000. So, if I can just speak to it, uh, I would like to thank manager Delfina Darte for getting this onto the agendas today. Uh, it was a long haul getting here. A lot of work working with the folks at AAC, so really really grateful for that work. Um, just a comment, I've received some questions just about Ancaster Society for the Performing Arts and the operating name of Ancaster Memorial Arts Center. Um, they are one in the same charitable corporation. AAC is a registered operating business name. Um so there is no different organization is a nonprofit charitable corporate uh corporation. Uh and just want to emphasize that this is has agreement from the board of AAC and the Ancaster Society for the Performing Arts. Uh and the city has agreed to it. That's why the motion is here. It is to resolve this funding commitment from the community to the city. And as I mentioned, there is an ongoing commitment annually from naming rights that will continue, I think, for another seven years, and the city is fine with that. So, just looking for your support to uh uh carry this agreement and support this agreement so that the community can resolve its uh fundraising contributions. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation, council. We're going to go to councelor Tom Jackson. Thanks, Deputy. I know that the Ancaster Memorial Arts Center, I'm sure, is under the tender loving care of the Ward 12 office and the new counselor, Craig Casar. I just as I think part of my purpose still being in this August chamber, thank you to the residents of the East Mountain, is to provide some link to the past always. And I just want to sincerely say this would not have even been in existence or a reality if it wasn't for the great advocacy and great work of former Ward 12 counselor Lloyd Ferguson and the late great Boris Brat who I'll never forget packed this chamber with so many of his young uh students of music uh that filled the chamber and strong advocacy to say that this was a muchneeded center uh and above all in Ancaster And the location in my humble opinion is just so ideal, right in the heart of the town. And uh just want to congratulate the fact that if this is um if you will a rejigging of the financial contribution and will allow the Ancaster Memorial Arts Center to get some federal funding and to help the local volunteer group to flourish continuously with great performances. I'm strongly supportive. Thanks, Deputy Mayor Tatter. And thank you, councelor, for acknowledging those founders. Councelor Jeff Bey. Thank you, Chairu. And thank you to the mover for kind of frontloading uh a response to to the questions that I did ask. And just for transparency, I I did ask some questions uh offline uh because there were two different anacronyms used um ASPA and AAC. And um when I was doing research in a preparation for today's meeting, uh they came up different and one came up as a a nonprofit, one came up as a for-profit. And so um I've been assured that by the word counselor, but maybe I could get it from staff as well that their understanding is one is the operating name of the other. it's fully nonprofit because I guess what I I wouldn't want is that we get down the road and we discover that um something has been misunderstood and that there is a for-profit entity somehow involved uh that would be I don't know making money off of the enterprise of the the nonprofit which we have a nominal lease agreement uh which could call to question some of uh the things that are being discussed here today. So, at any rate, if I could just maybe get confirmation from manager Delfina Dorte on um what we're dealing with as far as ASPA goes and AAC and how they are the same or different and how they are uh either nonprofit or for-profit chair um through the chair. Thank you for for the question, councelor Bey. Uh they are one and the same. Um, Ancaster Memorial Arts Center is the business name. The registration and the corporate name is the Ancaster Society for Performing Arts. Our lease agreement is with Ancaster Society for Performing Arts, but the names are uh used interchangeably and the re the charity registration number applies to both. They're one and the same. Thank you for the clarification. So, that's that's just been stated on the public record. I think we're all good and we'll move forward. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Ted McMegan. Uh, thanks, Deputy Mayor. Just picking up on councelor Jackson's point about I think you called it financial jigging. Was that the phrase you used? Um, this project underwent a lot of that. Uh, I can remember with some considerable fondness a grant of $3 million that was extended. I had the the joy of making that announcement many years ago and um that was one of I think about eight cultural projects across the province that um were cancelled when we had the change in government and that complicated a lot of the financial um happenings. uh the the feds through uh uh the local MPPP MP's office was able to come and fill in that gap and and this additional money is obviously uh wrapping up a very complex long and winding road around getting the center built and uh and uh adequately and accurately funded. So I appreciate the efforts of the counselor and uh look back on this as something that a lot of people worked hard on and is uh certainly paying dividends in the community with a lot of kids who are engaged as the good counselor will know with all kinds of cultural and musical and theater activities in that center. It's a it's a lovely place uh with a with a great future. Thanks. Thanks, Councelor McMegan. Councelor Cooper, thank you, Chair. Um, just a question for staff. I I see when um councelor Ferguson passed a motion in 2022, a reference to the early on child and family center and a contribution of 300,000. Later in the motion, I see this amount coming back to the reserve. Uh, and and clearly outlining the fact the early on child and family center would not happen at the art center. Where are we on the whole early on child and family center? what's what's happened to them and uh and uh maybe you could just fill in all the information around that through your chair. Um through the chair. Thank you councelor Cooper. Um the uh early on uh child care program is in part being accommodated at field co house in Ancaster. Um and they have um also um come up with different ways to accommodate the program throughout Hamilton in general. Um but uh essentially it was accommodated at field coat. So you know I think when councelor Ferguson originally envisioned this there was there was some need that was being fulfilled with this 300,000. And so I I why are we bringing the 300,000 back to reserve? Why aren't we looking to uh fulfill whatever it was the original intent of uh councelor Ferguson was with respect to uh this uh this this center through the chair again. Thank you for the question. um by uh sending the 300,000 back to the reserve, uh it just allows the early on uh program to repurpose those funds for other uses according to their own long-term planning. I hope that answers the question. Thank you. And through you, chair. So, we're still saying the 300,000 is allocated to the uh early on child and family center and it's up to their discretion how they might apply that. through the chair. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Councelor Cooper. I'm not seeing any more people wishing to speak, so we'll go to the vote. Vote is up. That carries 14 to zero. Now we're on to 9.5 rapid remediation of illegal dumping and former encampment site debris and it has been revised. Councelor Francis, would you please present your motion and advise us of your seconder? Thank you, Deputy Mayor Tatterson. And I will also after I read the motion out explain the changes, but this is moved by myself and seconded by councelor Spataphora. Rapid remediation of illegal dumping of former encampment site debris. Whereas multiple locations across the city have been identified with significant illegal dumping and debris associated with former encampments negatively impacting the natural environment, public safety, and community well-being. Whereas timely remediation of these sites is critical, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas such as ravines and waterways. Whereas the current response timelines for cleanups are often prolonged, resulting in ongoing environmental degradation and community concern. Whereas seasonal conditions provide an opportunity to identify and access impacted areas prior to full vegetation. Whereas the city maintains existing operational budgets, staff and contractor resources for waste management by law enforcement and environmental services. Therefore, be it resolved that staff be directed to immediately prioritize and undertake cleanup and remediation of the following locations using existing resources and approved budgets at uh Red Hill Valley Parkway at Barton Street, the Red Hill Creek. Number two, Barton Street between Boow Valley Drive and Lake Avenue North, including the ravine area from the guard rail to the bottom. And three, the area of Quigley Road and Albbright Road. B, that staff be directed to expedite response timelines for legal dumping on and former encampment debris cleanup across the city with a focus on environmental environmentally sensitive areas. And C, that staff be directed to report back to the public works committee in Q3 2026 on current service standards and response times for cleanups. two, barriers for timely remediation, including staffing, equipment, or coordination issues, and three, opportunities to improve response times within the existing resources. And D, that staff be directed to engage with the Ministry of Transportation regarding uh debris and dumping concerns on provinially owned lands and report back on actions taken. So, if I could just uh speak to this and I have a couple questions of staff. I um this motion is about getting illegal dumping and and debris cleaned up in areas where it's clearly been sitting for far too long, especially in RVs near waterways. Some locations have been there for months. I've had another one that's been there for over a year. Uh it's unacceptable and and people are tired of having a dirty city. I I brought this forward quickly because uh the concerns from the public has been significant and which has really been ramped up in the last week or so since the snow has melted. a lot more eyeballs on this as folks are back in our green spaces and there's a clear opportunity right now to deal with these sites before the vegetation fills in uh and access becomes more difficult rather than waiting a month for the next council meeting. I want to acknowledge that I originally proposed using the climate change reserve. My goal was to find funding that already exists and quickly uh to have this addressed as soon as possible. And after speaking with staff and stakeholders, the motion has been updated to use a different existing resources and approved budgets, I had a good conversation with Ian Borsuch from Environment Hamilton, and I I really appreciate his time and input and collaboration on this and look forward to further further conversations with Ian. Um, I'd like to see better coordination so these issues don't sit unresolved for long periods of time, which is what's currently happening. And this is a basic service delivery. These spaces should be clean. They should be safe. They should be properly maintained. And if you haven't seen some of these pictures or videos, I'm happy to send them to you. These are literally explosions of filth. Gas tanks, propane tanks, paint cans, all of them sitting in very environmentally sensitive areas like the Red Hill Creek or right next to Lake Ontario leeching into our waterways. And if anyone who cares about the environment in any fashion, uh they they'll see this and and um uh they'll be just as upset when they see it. Um, this is a these are really just disasters waiting to happen and um just a couple questions for me to staff if I might. Um, I just want to know when I can expect to see these three locations cleaned up. The one uh the first one that I originally had on there was cleaned up after I had placed this on the agenda, which is why it's been removed. Uh, just want to know the timeline for the other three, which I've been waiting for. And then I've got two more quick questions after that. And so you're asking a question when it will be cleaned up if the motion passes. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you through the chair to councelor Francis. Um as you know uh when we I I went in and looked at the photos of the areas on on the maps and all of them are very uh kind of difficult to reach areas not necessarily the illegal dumping we get in the ditches and along the roadside. So uh typically in that situation uh between roads, parks and waste management, we would procure a contractor to do that which is the same contractor that we have for our encampment cleanups. Uh so I'd like um director Cynthia Graham will be able to talk about the process to procure the to get that contractor in and the timelines related to the cleanup through the chair. Cynthia Graham, director of environmental services. So, we're just in the RFT uh Q process to get the contractor on board. We will work quickly to get the PO in place and and have them be able to um start uh this work. In the meantime, staff uh will use our own resources um to address the areas that are accessible and uh safe. uh will clarify that um of course uh the cleanup of dumping is um something that we do regularly and uh is something that that we um take pride in keeping our parks uh clean. So, we do uh ask and rely on the public's health help to identify locations and they can call those locations in through the customer call center. And um some of the areas that are identified may not yet be safe to um access for staff, but we will continue to monitor and get at them as soon as we can. Thank you. And that was leading into my next questions about the contractor. So, it's my understanding that there was previously a contractor, but currently today there's no contract in place. Is there I just want to get clarity on why that was allowed to lapse like that through your chair. Through the chair, uh the the contract uh with the with the contractor ended um late last year. Staff uh worked through the process to be able to get that in place. Unfortunately, um we weren't able to have no gap in service. Uh we'll work to fix that uh scenario in the future and have better eyes on that essential service. Um I don't have a good explanation as to why there is a gap this year, but uh just working with staff and um workloads in process um that's the situation we have at the moment. Thank you. And uh last question for me, chair. Um, so we bring on a city contractor after this is all said and done. Hopefully get that sooner than later because some of these areas are very hard to get at. Um, that would require a contractor to get in there. If we have a funding envelope that's already covered by staff, is it possible that that funding envelope disappears? And what would be the mechanism? Does the contract just run out? If if there is more cleanup costs associated, would a counselor need to bring a a motion to a subsequent council meeting to top that up through the chair? Um, so the funding is sits in a contractual line in our operating budget and we would monitor that as the year progresses and if it looks like we will be in a deficit position then we would need to have a conversation with the finance team about how to address that and if there's an adjustment or pressure that would be um required to um be able to show uh an additional piece of funding for that. uh in the past, unless this is a year where there's significantly more illegal dumping than typical, I I don't at this time have a concern with overages in that um part of our budget, but um as always, we monitor and and if there's an adjustment needed, we will work with the finance team. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm I'm willing to when we get to that point uh if there is a funding uh requirement help find a funding source for that uh so we can continue this without a contract lapsing on us like we're currently in. So just want to uh thank staff for uh their input on that and uh I can answer any questions if committee members have any. Okay. Thank you councelor Francis. And we're going to go to councelor Nan. Thank you deputy mayor. Thank you, Councelor Francis, for amending the motion from the original version to the corrected one that's on council agenda today. Appreciate no reference here to the climate change reserve as those funds are allocated already within the budget process. Um, I have a question to staff regarding the prioritization that's indicated in the motion should it pass as worded. What's our current triage slash uh priority setting process for encampment cleanups? uh through the chair for encampment cleanup specifically, we take our lead from uh the bylaw team that go out and identify that there is a cleanup required and that there is either um uh an abandoned site or or work with them for uh removing an encampment from a location and then um is prioritized after that. Uh typically I my recollection is that based on health and safety um the the size and scope of the cleanup might factor into how high a priority uh a location might be. If um there is debris that that affects u mobility or recreation use then then those might be a higher priority than um a natural open space that that is is less accessible to the public. Thank you. And there are the um kind of other priority areas that were established in terms of I believe the rail trail was was listed. There was a number of other locations as well. So just wanted to get clarity around the prioritization. Uh good afternoon and Dan Smith uh director of licensing and bylaw services uh through the chair to the counselor. So uh we continue to have the priority areas in ward 3 and also the 1 km radius around the Tiffany Barton location. Um we as it relates to the cleanups. So when our team receives a complaint about a location, we would go and address that location. Uh once we have determined that the encampment site has been uh remedi or not remediated but the individuals have left the area and it is then ready for a cleanup, we would provide notification to the parks team if they weren't there already with us. Some sites we asked them to go with us at the time to remove the items uh more quickly. Uh but other ones we would just uh share with our parks team and then they would schedule the cleanup following that notification. Thank you. and through you, Deputy Mayor, recognizing that some of the debris that's been listed uh previously by the counselors moving the motion um some of them aren't necessarily tied to encampments. There are a lot of sites of extremely dangerous and repeat locations of illegal dumping that include construction debris that include bags upon bags of unidentified uh substances that I know that uh our waste services team have done a lot of proactive research into. Uh there has been some uh enforcement as a result of identifiable materials inside of those packages. Um, this happens every year and, uh, there are some specific areas, I'm sure, not dissimilar to the ones that are listed by Councilor Francis, throughout the city where we see um, targeted illegal dumping, especially right after the thaw. It's like, as soon as the snow is melted, not only do we see the stuff that had been left there before the snow, but then it's like, oh yeah, uh, it's spring. let me get rid of my junk in my area and go dump it in another section of the city and hopefully not be held accountable to that. Um so accordingly uh we often see this on and around and adjacent to our rails in the city. So both CN rail C uh increase in debris and then also CPC there's been a lot of conversation in the community also around the rail trail uh and then getting clarity around who owns what lands. So, if I could through you, Deputy Mayor, on the rail trail adjacent to the CPKC line, uh, can we get some clarity and I think there is an email that many staff are are CCd on that's looking for clarity around who's responsible for the cleanup and and what is the standard um that residents can anticipate knowing that spring is here. Okay, good question. uh through the chair uh in for the vast majority of the escarment through Hamilton and uh typically on either side of the rail trail that is city-owned open space and so would fall to the um uh coordination for our parks team to review and and facilitate the cleanups where there are uh extreme slopes or difficult difficult to access areas. Our staff aren't trained in um rope tie offs and uh those types of u trickier situations. So that's where we do um ask the contractor to help us with those locations. um where there is a boundary with uh rail uh the rail lines um rightly so don't want uh city staff entering their property to um be working in their areas. So in those situations it does become challenging for us to coordinate um because the uh the coordination with the rail um groups they're not necessarily um in the area doing that work all the time. So um what I can suggest is that staff are working and will will be ongoing uh work to try and coordinate to ensure cleanups happen. But our hands are are a little bit tied when it comes to addressing dumping that isn't on city property. Appreciate that. And final uh note, deputy mayor is appreciating that staff said that they will take it away to ensure that there's no uh gap in annual service delivery for this kind of work. Uh wondering if that needs to be embedded in the motion um as direction to staff so that it can be part of the OBL. uh through the chair. If I can just get clarity, are are you referring to a report back on the funding piece or the report back to outline how we can have a more coordinated spring cleanup yearly? Um the Thank you, Deputy Mayor. It was to clarify how to ensure that there is no gap in the delivery of these services. annually through the chair. Um, my direction that I understand from this motion is that staff will come back with a report that outlines how all of the different aspects and and work groups can coordinate this work annually in a in a more cohesive way. um so that council can understand what the service levels are, what our response timelines may be and have an opportunity to review if additional um resources might be desired to um change that level of service. So my understanding is that that o that direction and Obl is already embedded in the motion and we would respond back uh with that information. Okay. Appreciate. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Wang. Uh, Council Clark. Oh, sorry, Council Clark. That's the second time, Deputy Mayor. Not that I'm keeping notes. Um, couple of questions to staff. Um, along the same lines really as what Council Nan was asking. Um surely by now we have a coordinated annual response for cleanup in the city of Hamilton whether it's the roads division the parks division or whatever division every spring we have to go through this is do we have that acting director thank you uh uh through the chair to councelor clerk Yes. Uh each of our divisions has a program throughout the whole year, but especially when the snow melts uh to get to those areas uh in a timely fashion. Some of them are in areas that we travel by regularly and therefore the response would be more proactive. other areas are not necessarily in areas that we're traveling by regularly and we uh lean on people reporting those locations to us or we lean on our colleagues to do the same. If road sees sees something that waste needs to address, they let us know. If waste sees something that parks needs to address, we let them know. So, we do have a coordinated program around uh public works and illegal dumping. However, we don't have a uh you know, tomorrow it starts and we're going to see us out in droves and blitz uh the community to make sure that it's all done quickly. So, that's the part that we would like to investigate uh going forward to seeing if we can have a more coordinated proactive approach uh when it's required uh when the snow melts. I I can tell you that along the the link um the Redole Valley Alley Parkway up in Ward 9 and our parks up there and even our escarpant um where we have to do some unique cleanups. Um it's done annually. You know, it's pretty rare for the counselor h to have to request it to be done. So what's different here then? Why does councelor Francis have to bring a motion directing staff to do their jobs through the chair? I'll start and maybe councelor Francis would like to assist if he wants to add anything further. So in a situation like this, um it would be our preference to uh take each of the locations and come up with a program or a plan to be able to remediate those locations. In this situation, in speaking with councelor Francis, he wanted to ensure that in this case, they were done quickly. And of course, due to the risky nature of the locations or the difficulty to access those locations, uh we knew we needed to deploy a contractor to assist us with that cleanup. So, it was uh Councelor Francis's preference to bring that through a motion. So, is this what we need to do from now on? If I need a cleanup in an area in my ward instead of simply calling it in to management, I have to bring a motion here to have it cleaned up. Uh through the chair. Uh no, you do not. uh in the in these specific uh scenarios again it was more related to the complexity of the cleanup areas. You'll recall last week you and I spoke councelor Clark about the top of 50 road. Uh we handled that uh we had the cleanup. Of course there was more dumping the next day but um we have a process in place to kind of continue to go back to those hotspot areas as well. And each year there's standardized hotspot areas that we would check out frequently and there are also new ones added. So um that's how you and I dealt with that situation and that's how we can continue to deal with them going forward. Thank you. So then am I to take that the Red Hill Valley Parkway at Barton the Barton Street between Bow Valley and Lake Avenue including the ravine and guardrail in the area Quigley Road and Albbright. They're all unique because they had encampments and there could be sharps there uh through the chair. No, they're they're all they're different to roadside dumping um because they require uh there's more risk getting into those areas to clean them. It's not just you know park on the side of the road, set up your safety uh equipment around your truck and go into the ditch to bring the material out. It's uh sometimes you mentioned your escarment areas where you're scaling. We have to get somebody to scale down the ENC uh escarment to pick up some of that material etc. So, in this case, they're I don't want to say they're unique because we do have these situations that we coordinate annually um to clean up, but to get these three specific locations that required that um extra service with the contractor due to the risk, uh they came through that way. Uh thank you for that, Deputy Mayor. defining the risk is is helpful because um I know people who do watch this regularly uh on cable 14, they're going to have questions and and so I want to just make it very clear that when we have people in the community with eyes on Hamilton and they call the city line or they call their counselor and the information is shared with management that management deals with it. We don't need to do motions like this except in the rare cases where there is um occupational health risks in the cleanup and we have to do things slightly differently. Is that a fair summation through the chair? That is correct. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Clark. No slate intended there. I think it's just uh the clerks and I are playing whack-a-ole with the speakers list and I'm not always on the same screen as them. Yeah, there we go. Um, now I believe it's councelor Wang. Thank you. Uh, thank you for all the work that councelor Francis has done to uh to this motion. Question around uh item D because as councelor Francis has indicated the areas that he has identified are very related. So what is the exact relationship that we have with MOT? Because I also think about um exactly at counselor Nan's point of like it's along the rails uh especially CPKC um or anywhere like that. There's a lot of debris that's not our jurisdiction. So what does that relationship look like? And I truly appreciate that he's added it in here. I just want to understand a little more clearly how we can keep that accountability happening there through the chair. Um I'm going to take a a shot at this and then I believe our new uh director of transportation is online too if if um there's additional clarity that uh he'd like to provide. But I do know that um the uh transportation team have regular coordination meetings with the Ministry of Transportation and uh so items like graffiti on MTO property um cleanup such as this, other other matters can be um discussed at a regular meeting and brought up um and uh therefore the the uh work can be coordinated. Um again similar to any rail um properties it is challenging for our staff to enter onto property that is in cities. So we would need to coordinate that and I see he's on the line so uh I'll stop talking and if he wants to add anything in through the chair that's Vince Faras the director of transportation. Uh so yes, I intend to uh reach out to the Ministry of Transportation and the Hampton District Office uh in the near future to discuss items such as this about how we can collaborate on identifying and addressing these type of issues with respect to illegal dumping or any other form of cleanup. So it is on my agenda to discuss with them and I'd be happy to report back. Thank you to both directors Graham and director Furza. Furza. Did I say that right? Director. Okay. Yes, you did. I um I question because um with the Ministry of Transportation I I wonder how we might work together with them because there has been many times I know in my office we've reached out to many of these different ministries but yet there's a lot of but that's my not my jurisdiction that's not my funding that's not my so how how do we what was the normal normal process before just so that I can get a better understanding of as we are doing this process moving forward um that we avoid some of this and actually just get on with it and clean up these areas. So I wonder if you can just educate us a little bit on what happened before. I'm not sure who can answer that. Yeah, just through the chair uh director Sparazza, I am not sure if you have some information on that specifically. It would be very similar with what you dealt with in your previous municipality as well. So maybe you could uh touch on that. So through the chair, yes. So as was mentioned before uh there'd be quarterly meetings set up with uh the Ministry of Transportation and in those quarterly meetings there'd be a number of issues that would be discussed but my intention is actually to have more frequent uh engagement with the Ministry of Transportation because to your point counselor these issues do not just come up every quarter. In fact they come up more often than that. So my intention is is to actually establish a more standard operating procedure to deal with these issues on a more frequent basis. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for answering my questions. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Kretch, just to councelor Clark's point about whether or not we have these services. Yep, we do. And I've certainly when residents have reached out, we've made sure to say this is exactly where you go. This is how they get dealt with. when it's specifically around encampments, that's a different way of doing it. So, I think one of the troubles with this has been that we've had different policies over the last three years with respect to how garbage is picked up, whether it's related to an encampment, a former encampment site or not. And so, frankly, it's been a little confusing. First, you were supposed to only send emails to this place, then somewhere else, now somewhere else. And so, it's good to have this discussion. Also, there are always things happening downtown as new developments come online or we change road patterns, which happens more frequently than other places where now um things aren't being seen by city staff. We don't have a crew of people roving around town kind of like with their eye out, you know, hey, there's a spot. You know, that's not an activity we fund here. So a lot of it is complaint based and we have to wait till people point some things out and they're not always obvious spots in two like there's a there's a bridge on Metroink's property that's kind of near Leuna under there is difficult to get to and frankly we don't have necessarily all the different harnesses and equipment that we need and specialized training to get people in certain weird locations. So then in those situations where they are very specific we have to contract someone out. The only other thing I wanted to add to this discussion was something that really impacts the lower city when it comes to this issue is around the CPC rail lines and CN rail lines. And what I've been told uh forever before I was a counselor was oh we don't talk to CPKC and CN um basically like we don't have a relationship with them as counselors. And I found that ought to be the case actually. I meet with them semi-regularly some same with Metro Links. But from a political perspective it's not really my job to be doing some of the bureaucratic work when it comes to this. the track gang uh who cleans up CN lands every year. The constant tension in that conversation every year for decades and decades has been uh there's a ton of litter that is on CN and CPKC lands that then is trapped in fencing that's there. But then when it gets windy at this time of year, then the litter goes everywhere. Then it goes back there. and CN and CPKC's perspective as well. We're not creating the litter. Like the trains aren't literally having people throw things at the windows. Like it's not our passengers or our rail cars that are creating litter. It's your community that's doing it. Then we have to work through this complicated arrangement. And hopefully James, the guy who works on the line there is available like and we can give him a ring and he can like show up and meet us. But it's all really just like an ad hoc activity where volunteers in the community have a relationship with James who's part of the police force at PKC. But if like anything happens to James or the volunteer, whoops, that program is gonzo. So I'm trying to understand how this can be incorporated into what we're doing going forward. Like the city should just have a regularized agreement with these rail authorities where we just go in and we clean them up and we can invite volunteers to participate because volunteers frankly enjoy participating in helping clean their neighborhoods up and and generate some pride in their neighborhoods. But we don't seem to have a program related to this and I think that's an important part of this. So maybe that is a motion for a different time. And in fact, as I'm saying this, I'm just going to email you about this so we can set up a motion for another time, but I want to flag that because I think that's a big piece of what's happening downtown. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. I'm not seeing anybody else, so we can go to the vote. Vote is up. And that carries 14 to zero. Thank you, counselor. And we're on to 9.5 correspondence A1 through A 9. May I please have a mover and seconder to receive the correspondence under 7.3A a ab a and AC? Councelor Wilson, Councelor Spataphora. Are there any speakers in the queue? Not seeing any. Please a show of hands to indicate your vote now. In favor? Thank you. That passes somewhat. Um, we're going to 9.6. Naming of the bridge on Jones Street, Stony Creek to McDougall's Bridge. Councelor Francis, would you please present your motion and advise us of your seconder? Thanks, Deputy Mayor Tennyson. It's moved by myself, second by councelor Bey. Naming of bridge on Jones Street, Stony Creek to McDougall's Bridge. Whereas the bridge on on Jones Street in Stony Creek is currently under reconstruction. Whereas the McDougall family has been a long-standing presence in the Stony Creek community since approximately 1910. Whereas Lauren McDougall served as a counselor for the former village of Stony Creek in the 1920s. Whereas the McDougall family historically owned land surrounding and behind the bridge structure since approximately 1910. Whereas the family's local legacy continued through multiple generations, including Robert McDougall in the late 1960s and Bob McDougall from 1997 to present with McDougall's garage on King Street serving as a community fixture. Whereas Bob McDougall is retiring and selling the family business, making the end of the over a century continuous family presence in the community. Whereas the timing of the bridge reconstruction does not align with regular schedule of the facility naming subcommittee and is the only practical opportunity to incorporate a commemorative name into the bridge structure with concrete. Therefore, be it resolved a that the naming of the bridge on Jones Street as McDougall McDougall's Bridge in recognition of the McDougall family contributions to the Stony Creek community be approved and be uh the cost associated with concrete forming and related works to permanently incorporate the name into the bridge, be funded from the W 5 minor maintenance capital project 4032311605 at an upset limit including contingency not to exceed $5,000. just to speak to this very quickly. Uh this is a uh something that have I've spoken with the McDougall family and the Stony Creek Historical Society very recently. Uh this idea came forward uh after the bridge was uh um decommissioned and and demolished. And uh this was uh supported by uh obviously uh the McDougall family and uh the Sony Historical Society. um they wanted to keep the McDougall name in Stony Creek. I I I obviously I'm a member on the facility naming subcommittee would have preferred to go there but given the fact that this bridge is under construction as we speak um and the concrete forming will be happening in the coming weeks there there's absolutely no time to go and do that if I want this actually formed in concrete. So that's why I'm bringing this here and I hope uh folks can keep that name alive in in Stony Creek for many many years to come as it's been there for many years in the past. Thank you. And thank you councelor and we're going to go to councelor Jeff Bey. Thank you chair and through you. Um happy to second this and speaking in favor of it. There's certain things in downtown Stony Creek that are uh kind of quintessential Stony Creek iconography. And of course, when you go to the west, you see the gauge house, our beloved Stony Creek monument. In the downtown at the corner of Mountain and King Street, you have the Century uh Century Square building, also known as Institute Building, or the Milmine Building. Uh we used to have to the east the beloved Stony Creek Dairy. Unfortunately, uh we we lost that piece. McDougall's Garage is one of those things. I mean, it's been there shortly after the Earth cooled, I think. Um, and having attended with councelor Francis and councelor Clark many uh, Stony Creek Santa Claus parades going through the downtown, you see the big gathering in the parking lot of McDougall's. And it's sad to hear and I congratulate Bob on his retirement, but it's sad to hear that uh, the possibility of losing that that piece after 115 116 years of operation. That's quite a legacy. And so happy to support this, understanding the the rush in order to get this done. Uh but 100% this is a very very good endeavor and will I think uh permanently uh cement uh the name McDougall in downtown Stony Creek going to go forward. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much for that. I'm seeing councelor Clark. Is that correct? Thank you. Thank you. Um Bob McDougall and his work in downtown Hamilton. He he he is an iconic figure by himself. The challenge that I'm having is that we are once again sidest stepping the facility naming subcommittee. We did it for Mansanelli Avenue or Street in Hamilton Mountain and now we're doing it down here. And I get the premise that in order to incorporate it into the concrete or the cement of the bridge structure that it needs to be done quicker. Um, but I have problems with us not following our own guidelines. That's why we put them together so that they're not political decisions on the floor here. Those guidelines enable us to do the research and prepare to do the commemoration in a proper manner. Um, so my concern is is not the name of the individual at all, but there's a process and if we can't incorporate it into the bridge, then there are other ways to do it with brass blacking um much like we did where the fountain is in the survey or if you get the the old fellow's name who was the original surveyor for Stony Creek, Augustus Jones. What an August guy. Um, that's the kind of thing that that we could do. So, I I truly have concerns that we're doing this again. Thank you. Thanks for those cautions about the process, councelor. I'm not seeing Oh, councelor Cooper. Uh, thank you, chair. And just to correct councelor Clark's list, he forgot the archals. But I will mention this. Um, you know, I've had an experience with that committee. I got blindsided by the naming of a park that what we weren't consulted. I got handed a bill to put a sign up. So, as much as we think that committee is utopium, it has its own challenges. So, thank you, chair. Thank you for those comments. At this time, let's put it to the vote. Votes up. Interesting. That passes 12 to 1. So we're going now to notice of motion 10.1 supporting the role of trustees in maintaining an an accountable transparent education system. Councelor Wang, would you please present your notice of motion? Thank you. I will leave this as a notice of motion for council to consider for the next council meeting. uh just reading into the records a couple of whereas statements that way it's not taking up all the time. Whereas school trustees have existed in Ontario since 1816 and play an essential role in devel delivering accountability reflecting local priorities and ensuring students receive necessary resources. Whereas this democratic representation provided by trustees has been a central principle of Ontario's public education system since before confederation. Whereas bill 33, which received royal ascent in November 2025, grants the province overriding authority which may be used to eliminate the role of trustees in part or in whole. And whereas it is crucial for city council to join other municipalities in reaffirming the importance of trustees in maintaining local representation for parents and students. Uh the therefore be resolved is that we Hamilton City Council supports the role of locally elected trustees and ensuring accountability representing local priorities and advocating for the needs of students. That Hamilton City Council requests that the province of Ontario initiate a robust provincewide consultation on school board governance models before considering any decision that would alter the governance role of trustees. NC that the motion be circulated to the Ontario Public Schools Boards Association, Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association, Rural Ontario Municipal Association, the Association of Municipalities Ontario, members of Provincial Parliament representing the writings in the city of Hamilton, the Minister of Education, and the Premier of Ontario. Staying as a notice of motion, please. Thank you, counselor. Are there any other further notices of motion at this time? Not seeing any. Thank you. I'm going to break for lunch now. We're going to come back at 1:15 and we'll do statements by members at that time and then go into close session. So until 1:15, thank you. Welcome back everyone. Uh thanks uh for um taking over the duties this morning, Councelor Tatis. I I very much appreciate it. Uh we're going to go into the next part of the uh the agenda. Uh, but I do just want to let folks know this morning I was in um at Hopa for a big announcement getting the Canadian Border Services Agency uh to um be present at our port so that we can have expanded utilization of uh container trucks at the container terminal. So, uh that would be an extremely beneficial thing not only for our economy and goods movement obviously, but also um for greenhouse gas emissions as trucks will come off the highways. Traffic will be a little bit relieved hopefully. And uh it's a really exciting announcement. It was very cold, very cold out there, but um but so I do I do apologize for not being able to be here this morning, but uh thanks again to Councelor Tison. I hope things went well. I'm sure I'll get this skinny at some point. Uh, on that note, we are into the part of the agenda that uh, provides members the opportunity to share what's been happening in their wards or anything they want to be sharing with their um, constituents or or Hamiltonians. So, if you want to populate, I believe we've got a list already started. Uh, starting with councelor Spataphora. Councelor Spataphora, please go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Uh over the weekend, the Ward 14 office hosted our Easter egg hunt at Shonen Park. We asked residents to bring non-perishial food donations for neighbor to neighbor. Proud to share we collected uh just under 150 pounds of food for the community. So we were able to deliver that uh yesterday. So that was a very successful event. Also coming up in W 14, we're hosting our annual movie night St. and Andrew's Church in their auditorium April 18th starting at 7:00 p.m. And we will be playing Zootopia 2 serving popcorn and refreshments. Earth Day coming up in the next few weeks. Our office staff have cleanup supplies stored at our Shidokine office that we encourage residents to come by and pick up for free to use around our parks and community. My staff will be at Shidoke every Tuesday. Stop by, say hi, and grab some supplies. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councelor Spaphora. Councelor Clark, please. Thank you, Mayor Horvath. Just a couple announcements. Uh, I had the privilege of attending a need dinner at Nazir Malik's house with um a host of different people. It was a wonderful evening. Tremendous hospitality and camaraderie. Um, Jav Mzer was there from the Hamilton Mountain Muslim Association. Uh, and a number of members from the mosque. You know, it's important that we mention that the the mosque uh actually in councelor Jackson's ward uh do wonderful work raising funds for the poor, food for the poor. Um so I want to thank them for their generosity. I want to thank them for including me in the dinner. It was absolutely delicious and I really enjoyed myself. Uh I think I was one of the last people to go home. So they'll remember that. Um, Our Lady of the Assumption Church uh is having a 75th anniversary this year with a gala on April 11th and a high mass on June 14th. It's a remarkable community. It's my faith community in Upper Stony Creek. They've been serving over 4,000 families now and again raising funds to serve the poor, visiting seniors uh in their homes who are lonely and and finding just life to be a little bit challenging. I want to thank them all and congratulate them uh on the 75th anniversary and thank them all for their gratitude. Uh the mayor uh you're attending uh the gala uh so I really appreciate that as well. Um and uh lastly we are now slowly getting into Holy Week in the Christian faith. Um Holy Week will have uh Holy Thursday um then Good Friday the Easter Vigual and then Holy Monday. Um so all of our Christian churches and I have many of them in Ward 9 again uh they are celebrating Easter uh they have been reflecting uh on their community their faith for the last 40 days. Many of the mayor um did food drives and and and raised money for the poor in our community. And and I know we're not downtown Hamilton, but we still when you look at the statistics, you're looking at between 15 and 20% of the residents in Ward 9 are impoverished. And so, um, without the faith communities, the temples, the mosques, the churches, uh, it would be very challenging, uh, for those folks. So, I just want to thank everyone and wish them, uh, happy Easter. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councelor Clark. Uh, councelor Pauls, please. Thank you. Thank you, mayor, and welcome. Thank you for all that you do. Um, I just uh first of all, I want to say that um on April 9th, I will be at Limebridge Mall called Pulse in the Mall. And it is um I'm going to do it every Thursday for the next few months. And it starts April 9th from 1 to 3. And uh my theme is what matters to you. So everyone is welcome and uh I would uh do my best to uh answer the question what matters to them. Second, I want to say that um this uh this evening at 7 o'clock, I'll be going to the stadium because Sport Hamilton is having 30 for30, which means every day from April 1st to April 30th, you walk or run or move your body for 30 minutes and um for 30 days. And our hope is that it becomes a habit. We want a healthy Hamiltonians. We And it's proven that if you do something maybe 30 days, it'll become a habit. And if it hasn't become a habit, get a friend. Uh because I was on CH and I said, uh, they said, "Well, you're always motivated." No, sometimes I need to be motivated. So, I'm encouraging everybody tonight. It starts and it's going to be at the stadium. We're going to walk for 30 minutes. Last year we had about 500 people. I hope we get that many people to come out and form this wonderful habit. Um also um when councelor Cart talked about uh Easter, I want to wish everybody uh happy Easter and in my Christian faith uh we celebrate because we know the resurrection is coming and that is the most important thing for us. But I also want to send my warmest wishes to the Hamilton Jewish Committee and this annual holiday of freedom begins today. Happy Passover and what however you celebrate Easter, may you have find peace and uh freedom. So thank you mayor and uh for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Thank you councelor Pauls. Uh councelor Wang please. Thank you. Sorry excuse me. Thank you mayor. Uh I just wanted to share that the W4 team has partnered up with our W4 uh trustee to actually have a town hall on April the 20 sorry 3rd I want to say. Hold on double checking. I'm sorry it's I should have had this prepared and I wasn't. April 16th, this town hall will be asking questions about our local democracy. uh because we wanted to make sure that it we shared with residents that with the upcoming election what are some of the opportunities with the election team thankful to the clerk and his elections team on um participating this with us. The intention is really just to quite answer questions about what's going to be happening in the in the coming uh couple of months. And so, uh, we're very excited to also have, uh, several speakers from AMO with their healthy democracy project to actually come and speak from a very Ontariowide perspective as to how this municipal elections will be impacting all and we want to ensure that people are educated on why it's our civic responsibility to vote and how to get involved. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councelor Wang. Councelor McMin, please. Thanks, your worshipfulness. Good to see you back. and glad you had a cool time today. Yeah. Um I have three things I want to mention. Um want to begin by saying there are two things that are causing me to lose sleep these nights. Um very different things. One is the tomahawk missiles that are hitting ele the elementary school in Iran killed 175 elementary school kids. War is pretty ugly. and this one in particular and um at some some point u I know we've had discussions with each other about that and about our role there. Um the other is these darn potholes. I got to tell you it's it is um it is a miserable experience to drive the rural roads and uh to hear the concerns. I I know that because of the early winter and and how it lingered that exacerbated the situation, but that's not a good explanation to people whose cars are being wrecked by eating bottles. So, I just flag that the uh uh third thing I want to just mention the Nisha Nissa Foundation, Council Clark was talking about some of the outreach stuff in the Muslim community. they do a wonderful job um addressing some of the social issues and I appreciated his comments on that. Um the ward 15 council is meeting tomorrow and we'll be uh talking about a number of things but the one that is the third thing that causes me sometimes to lose sleep is the uh issue of food security in in my ward. It's I think the second or third wealthiest ward in the city on a per capita basis but there are a lot of people there. The uh dependence on food banks in u in water down has risen from 18.4% of families to almost 27%. So we'll be presenting uh three motions to help provide some relief there and a couple other minor ones as well. always look forward to um uh to that. Um the final thing I want to want to want to just reference um I I read with great interest and uh much appreciation the uh fact I think it's the fact although we need details yet of the two senior levels of government coming to the table with development charge stuff and u uh I think there was talk of an $ 8.8 8 billion investment in Ontario with 50% of the current development. Uh yeah, again the details are pending but uh but any news like that is good news because we do a lot of uh of articulation of concerns about the role and impact of the engagement or lack of engagement of senior governments and I know you're one of the real champions on that. So, um I'm optimistic that this will be a good um uh reflection and maybe lead to a greater shared sense of purpose between all three levels of government. This is a good start and uh the federal government made a commitment during their most recent federal election that they would come to the table with development charge relief and um I think that's good. You know the simple reality is when you look at housing prices about 18 to 20% is the cost to land almost 30% are various government fees and charges and much these days is also connected with a lack of capital funding as well. So there's some really serious challenges. I know we've talked about it several times around the table and finally some tentative belief that we're going to be working at this together and I'm very thankful for that. I would recommend with respectfully your worship that maybe you fire off a letter to to both the premier and the prime minister just saying thanks. Thanks. Thanks councelor uh McNeek and councelor Jackson please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Horvath. Um, couple of announcements. First of all, just absolutely delighted this past Saturday for the grand reopening of the Huntington Park Recreation Center. Mayor Horvath, I can't thank you enough on behalf of my East Mound community for taking time out of your busy weekend and doing so much hosting as well with regards to the fabulous Junos that were here in the city. My community really appreciated seeing you. We had between those in the pool and those on dry land, it was estimated we had 250 to 300 people turn out for a ceremony reopening and ribbon cutting the the grand um Huntington Park Recreation Center. I can tell you as the only hub of recreation on the East Mountain, my East Mountain community takes such possession and ownership of that recreation center. and the fact that it was closed for a year and it was closed longer than we had hoped for. But at the end of the day, patience is a virtue. You might as well get it done correctly and properly than open sooner and then have some uh stumbling out of the gate. That's the last thing we want to have. It was a $2.1 million project. Thank you for council of this term for your support. Within that $2.1 million, $545,000 came from my W 6 reserve. Thank you again for council's ratification of that. And I must uh acknowledge some people and Mayor Horvath. I want to thank city manager Marne Klucky and members of senior leadership team, general manager Grace Mater and Jackie Kennedy. Wow. Holy smokes. It was a very powerful lineup that was there at the Huntington Rec Center and all all you folks, all the leadership team got tremendous applause and appreciation from my community. I want to thank uh pro MC Janine Gaunt who's our senior manager of operations and recreation. I didn't know she had a hidden talent in terms of MCing events. She did a marvelous job. I've got to thank project manager Daniel Howitt overall manager Don Walton, recreation center Brad Walker, and of course under the leadership overall of recreation director Steve Seavore. and within facilities managers Sam Chardullo and Jeff Jeffrey Drummond for all the great work collaboratively they did. And of course the great feature of the reopening of the rec center is the brand new water slide uh that got the loudest cheer when the mayor announced it. And I I can tell you the old water slide was dormant for about four years. And so it was a much needed return of a component and an amenity that the community was just craving for and could hardly wait for its reopening. New tiles, new painting, uh new mechanical system, new basketball nets, a lot of improvements across the board at the Huntington Park Recreation Center. And uh I gave a historical quick comment, Mayor Horvath, on Saturday when I was uh allowed to speak and say a few words. It was the first cityowned recreation center when the mountain was just starting to begin growing beyond concession street in the mid60s. Former mayor Vic Cops opened the first city municipallyowned built recreation center and it was Huntington Park. And so all these years, 60 years later, it's uh still the main hub of the East Mountain community. Uh so I just want to say congratulations to the community and my also my eight member uh volunteer committee. Quickly, chair Stephanie Bashiera, co-chair Josh Gabber, his wife Jessica Gabber, Sarah Walsh, Sandy Horton, Brian Ree, Jim Hollands, and Nick Davies. Well done folks for your engagement and your leadership in uh reaching the great results and outcome we did at Huntington Park. And again, Mayor Horvath, thank you so much for your support in ensuring that the city money stayed in the capital budget. And similar to councelor Clark and councelor Paul's, I want to uh wish all the members of the Jewish community a very happy and blessed Passover. You are not uh forgotten whatsoever. you are top of mind. And secondly, amongst the overwhelming uh members of our city of Hamilton that have a Christian faith and background, whether it's Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox and at this holiest of holy times of the year, I want to wish them all a happy and blessed Easter. Thank you, Mayor Horvath. Thank you, Councelor Jackson. Councelor Nan, please. Thank you, Mayor. Uh first off, I just want to say a big thank you to manager Ducet, uh Carrie from the W3 team for hosting a community meeting with myself uh as it related to the Birch Avenue dog park. We had over 20 residents participate. Uh it is a dog park that is uh sadly missed as it's been closed for health and safety reasons. um and really important for residents to get firsthand the information as it results from the investigation of the soil as well as staff's uh current paths forward as they're um finding a way to not only remediate the site but enhance the dog park for future opening. And just a reminder to everybody that staff are actively working on a reasonable temporary site within Ward 3 in order to help meet the community demand and need. We're also hearing from Ward Four residents um who are like, "Hey, maybe this is an opportunity for a twofer." Uh a lot of Ward 4 dog owners and lovers also looking for a accessible and um local option for for a dog their dog park um for a dog park in their community. So, we've heard you and uh we're working on solutions and we'll be communicating regularly. Big congratulations to Ward 3's Hamilton Wentworth District School Board, Adelaide Hoodless Elementary School Music Teacher, Raquel Mintosh for winning the Music Counts Teacher of the Year award at the Junos. Um, not only is she an absolutely incredible force uh in the community. Uh she's transformed so many young people's experiences and relationship to music. The songs she brings into the kids' lives are just absolutely, you know, spine- chillingly empowering and wonderful. And these kids have had nothing but positive experiences inside of a school that isn't big enough to have a music room. Go figure, right? systemic barrier after systemic barrier facing kids living in inner city schools uh as the Ministry of Education continues to underfund really important critical core programming and curriculum that exists in other schools and this teacher finds a path through and uh I'm not surprised that she won the award tonight. Hate on Display uh is being hosted by the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Center. It's an informative session tonight identifying and responding to hate symbols. that will take place take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at McMaster Community Education Center at 1 James Street North. I'll be among the speakers to talk about our experiences in Ward 3 and to talk about the policies and work that we just passed through the emergency community services committee. On April 7th is the next Good Neighbors meeting with the Hamilton Stadium staff from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. to discuss our ongoing operational matters, parking, and other improvements related to the stadium. Every neighbor who lives adjacent is welcome. And then also next week on April 9th, city staff are hosting an open house about the heritage designation of the former Cathedral Boy School on Main Street East from 5 to 7:00 p.m. It's going to be an open house. And unfortunately, the meeting could not be accommodated within walking or short distance from the existing facility despite numerous attempts by staff to secure a location, including Central Memorial Rec Center, which is overprogrammed meeting the demands of the community there. So there just wasn't a window of opportunity to find a place. Um, community organizations are really busy with their locations as well, so their spaces weren't available. So the meeting is being held here at city hall and we recognize that's a barrier for participation. I'll be continuing to work with staff to make sure that local residents in the Stinson community get an opportunity to have a say in this important heritage designation. And finally, two final points. Uh, mayor, on April 25th, there will be a tenant forum from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. uh featuring all of the uh the wards of ward 1 2 3 4 as it relates to tenant issues. We'll have representatives from city staff to talk about all of the city work that's been done around tenants rights and uh it'll be a really informative opportunity for renters in all of our wards. And then finally, Jardala, as Vasaki approaches, may we all find our ever rising spirits to take a stand and face the realities of the times that we're living in. A shared theme among all of our faith communities this April. Thank you. Thank Thanks, Councelor Nan. Uh councelor Bey, please. Thank you, Mayor and through you. Just wanted to start by building off there was a uh a comment about the the Junos and I see you brought the the big the big hardware here into Council Chambers. Uh I I watched the show from the comfort of my home on Sunday night and I always watch the Junos. I love the Junos with millions of other Canadians. It was fabulous and I don't know if it was just Rush as the opening act or having the arkeels and the beaches, uh the prime minister presenting to Joanie Mitchell. Um, it was just one of the best darn shows I I've seen in years and I can't wait for the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to come back to Hamilton. I'm sure that you'll have a similar ask of them. Uh, my hats off to the organizers. It was just it was such a great show. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Uh, back in the ward. Um, this Saturday we've got the annual Winona Halloween. No, I'm in the wrong holiday. It's okay. We got too many events in Winona. There is a Halloween event. We'll get to that in October. But first off, we've got the Easter egg hunt which is about a 17 18 year getting close on 20-year tradition. It takes place in the same grounds as Winona Peach Festival. Fills the same footprint so you can imagine how big this event is. Starts at 9:00 with face painting, bouncy castles, all kinds of fun events. Uh members from uh police will be there. Our local Winona Fire Station is always there. And of course at 11:00 uh they they pull the horn on the fire truck and that signifies that the hunt is begun. So uh looking forward to seeing everybody in the war 10 community out at Winona Park this coming Saturday 9:00 a.m. Uh we also have a cleanup that's taking place at not the same park. Councelor Clark, no I see where you're going. Everybody will take their own eggs home. Um, Hunter Estates Park, the Hamilton Naturalist Club is conducting a cleanup there. Uh, this is in the wood lot. Uh, Went is blessed with two large parks, Hunter Estates as well as Ferris Park that have major naturalized wood lot areas within them. And the naturalist club has identified that need a little TLC at Hunter Estate. So, they'll be there on the 18th of April between 10 and 12. will hope to be able to come out and join them uh to clean up that uh really really key and important space within our community. Uh but I also have to do a little bit of double duty because I will be most likely cheering on our Orchard Park robotics team um as they make their way towards the Ontario provincials which will also be that day. the week before they will have been. That is the 10th 11th at Niagara College for their second event and of course they kick things off at McMaster last week with their first tournament where they they clinch number one. They're ranked number three in the world and they are on a trajectory of course to end up back at the World's uh competition in Houston, Texas later this uh spring. So uh cheer them on and look them up at 256.ca CA and uh we can't wait to see where that team goes again this year. Mayor, back to you. Thanks, Councelor Bey. Uh councelor Cooper, please. Thank you, chair. Um just uh want to mention uh uh was able to celebrate Eid with the Amadia Muslim community and join councelor Paul's and uh Chief Bergen and Chief Crocker as well as um MP uh Dan Muse and MPP Monica Cello. So, it was nice to see different levels of government coming together for this great celebration as well as key leaders in our city. Um, also want to recognize uh Compassion Ministry, been working with them in terms of feeding families in our ward. Um, over 3,000 families being fed through that ministry. But when you start looking at the affordability crisis uh council makin touched on, I mean between Rho Mohawk, Upper James and West Fifth, there's over 5,000 families being fed by ministries reaching out to help them. So our city is definitely in an affordability crisis, incomes just have not kept up with taxes and expenses and if it wasn't for these groups throughout our city making a difference these people's life, I don't know where people would be. So I want to recognize them in any way we can continue to support, I think we should as a city. Um, also we're going to be having uh some Easter egg hunts in in uh uh across the mountain as well. Uh um with the Gorly Park um 11 to 3 on April 3rd. uh if you'd like to come out to that, it's going to be tremendous. Also at East Mountain Park, there's another one from 11:30 to 2:30 and I believe councelor Paul's going to be there as well. So, uh also with it being um long weekend coming up and and uh various uh uh festivals uh you know and uh and and high points in in in faith calendars. I want to recognize first of all uh we'll say happy Easter everybody that celebrates Easter. Um, just wishing you a wonderful, wonderful weekend and Passover as well. Our Jewish community plays such an important role in our city. I want to recognize Passover and and wish everybody in the community a happy Passover as well. So, uh, thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate it. Thank you, Councelor Cooper. Councelor Tyson, please. Here we go. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just want to invite everybody out from Bimbrook to the Easter egg hunt there. Uh it happens this Friday from 10:00 to 1:00. It's sponsored by the BAS, an organization that's been in place since the n 1850s basically. I'd also want to thank our mounted unit who attend this on a regular basis for um their presence. It's always the kids always appreciate seeing the horses. Um we also have an Easter egg hunt in Mount Hope as well. That's a little later in the morning. Uh usually around 11:00. Uh thanks to councelor from Stony Creek here. Um Mr. Francis, he uh was talking about dumping today and I just wanted to say that we have lots of dumping on rural roads and um following along with that conversation. I also want to thank acting GM Angela Story who has really educated me in the process of who to call and what to do. So if you have dumping that occurs and it's on an private property, that's MLE who you call. If it's roadside dumping and it's bagged or it's identifiable, you call waste management. And then if it's just a roadside dumping and it's loose debris, that's roads. So I've learned all this and we've sent that out to our residents helping to hoping that they will be educated and they can make those calls themselves as opposed to always coming through the counselor's office. But we do appreciate talking to everybody. So hopefully they just don't bypass us on on a large degree. We have had we just had about two weeks ago a huge large trailer load dump on one of my roads. It was uh Tinside Road. Um it was renovated materials. It was dumped on a farmer's field beside the road. And the farmer called me. He's an aging farmer. Um frustrated. he can't get his tractor out to get it. It was actually beside the road. So, I alleviated those worries because it's actually something that roads and and our waste management people would take care of. However, in looking at this, the farmer's daughter came out and I encouraged her, why don't you take some pictures? and she put it on social media and we actually identified the place of origin for where these were and uh we passed that along to miss law enforcement and I'm hoping that they will follow up and and charge the people accordingly and find that out. So so there is a weapon that we can use because people are aware of things in the community and if you share it people care enough and they will um help you out with those problems. So, that was a big win. I think even though we had it started out with a problem, I think I think people just want people just want to see that we're doing something about it and that it's not just a lost cause. So, so again, utilize that. That's that that was a real win, I think. Um, what else do we have? I've had a lot of development in my area in the past couple years. Um, it's kind of been blitzing for me and I've had some very challenging situations to work through and I really wanted to ch to thank planning staff, environmental services, public works for all their assistance whenever I call. They have always without doubt answered the phone and and helped me and given me guidance to to help me navigate some of those very challenging issues. So, I just wanted to thank all who I've called in the past few weeks about that and and I won't mention their names. Uh, but it's been it's it helps me, like counselor McMakin says, it helps me to sleep at night knowing that I have a team behind me that will stand with me and guide me through situations and I'm just not that island of a counselor trying to deal with things on my own. Um, thank you so much again. Um, I just wanted to celebrate that we have just finished up our uh process for W 11 grants and we had a whole bunch of we had probably 20 applications and this money is coming through some of our uh community benefit our our community benefits. I guess it's a it's an it's something that started through the airport uh that's a community benefits fund and then we also have the cell tower. So I thought, you know what, I followed the lead of I'll say councelor Casar, councelor Kretch in helping to um bring that to more organizations and make them aware of that. And so we're going to share some of those uh funds with all our local people and uh really support social capital inside of W 11. And I want to thank some of the other counselors again for um going forward and leading the way on that. Much appreciated. We all can learn from one another and I appreciate everyone's support around the chamber. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Tison. I don't see anybody else on the list, so I'm I am going to take a few minutes uh uh with my own statement to talk about this beautiful statueette in front of me here. Uh and say thank you to councelor Bey for talking a little bit about the Junos as others did too. It was an incredible week. It really was an incredible week for our city. Uh to host the Junos meant a lot. Now, we don't have the final economic uplift numbers. We will be getting them. They will be good. They will be excellent. Um, but I can say for the entirety of the week, uh, our city was on full display. And, uh, I want to also proudly say as mayor, our city delivered. We delivered in a big way. Uh, I'm glad you shared the, uh, councelor Bey, the experience of watching the Junos at home. Those of us who were there uh, were we were just blown away about the experience. And when I met with Alan Reed from Caris and the Junos uh yesterday uh kind of doing the postmortem or Monday actually um he said it was best Junos ever and that the city really did a great job. And so everything from from his comments right down to the people on the street that I bumped into. I'd introduce myself. They were raving about our city. They were raving about the Junos and what a great show it was, but they were raving about our city. Words that we always talk about, we often talk about were being used by people who came to visit, right? Walkability, safe, feels clean, it feels welcoming, the people are friendly. It was amaz the restaurant scene people raved about. So I I I know sometimes we uh we're charged with, you know, solving problems and addressing issues and and creating opportunity for the future, but we need to take sometimes that moment uh to bask in the presence and say, "Boy, we did a really really great job and uh pat ourselves on the back. Uh I have to say the energy was uh really it was immeasurable. Um we showed up and it showed. Uh lots of standout moments. Um strong local turnout. Uh I got to meet Nelly Fertado and others which was awesome. Uh but a lot of big uh big names, a lot of lineups at V venues across the city. Uh a big win of course for Sarah McGlaughlin. Big win for the prime minister who found out that Joanie Mitchell was his biggest fan on Juno's night if anybody watched it. Uh but Joanie Mitchell, I mean Joanie Mitchell, that's that says it all. Um but the prime minister was there. I welcomed had a chance to welcome him. He was happy to be in our city. It was it was really a fantastic night. But um we did see Raquel Macintosh uh music counts win that award uh for um uh teacher uh of the year and she was music teacher of the year. She was fantastic. I got to meet her at a smaller venue that was particularly for all the nominated teachers. Amazing amazing woman. Uh really passionate. Her husband's a a music teacher as well. And so it's it was quite um quite great to see these people dedicated to bringing music uh and music education to young people. A lot of work behind the scenes led to the success that we had over these last couple of days. So our city staff teams kudos to you and congratulations and thank you. It was uh it was absolutely all hands- on deck and it really did show every every every single department, every single division. Um we had I I gave a note to SLT. So from the city manager all through all of the senior leadership team, the director levels, the managers, the frontline staff, everybody did such a great job. And of course, uh emergency services, um our own with fire and paramedics, but also the police service, everyone stepped up and it was it was really great. Volunteers, community partners. Uh it didn't happen by chance. It was a thoughtful, coordinated and incredibly wellexecuted uh set of events. So, thank you all very very much. We we wouldn't have had a success without all of you. Uh as I did as I did say, I I did connect with Allan a couple of days ago and um he did say it was the best Junos ever, but he also dropped off our trophy, our Juno's, our own city of Hamilton 2026. Junos's a symbol of what we were able to accomplish together. Our co-chairs were Tim Pisik and uh uh Ryan McHugh from our um um tourism and economic development team. They did a great job. We were on the national national stage and we really did show exactly who we are. A city that is hardworking, creative, welcoming, forwardinking and still full of grit. Uh so on that note, um I just want to uh say how proud I am and um invite you to be uh sharing in that pride because it was really great. If people want to come and have a closer look at that, Juno, we're going to have it displayed with tourism uh when um when we're finished with its formal its formal appearances, but um it's heavy. Ask councelor Wang. So be careful if you want to pick it up. It's heavy. Um I do want to say also just as I close cuz I heard the uh the ding there. Um I'm happy that councelor Paul's talked about the 30 for30 that's kicking off tonight. It's a good opportunity for people to uh you know get engaged in the spring and start moving around. Uh it's also um really I think important to acknowledge that we're heading into a very uh reflective time uh for a number of faiths in our community and as we know Passover uh and uh Easter and as councelor uh Nan mentioned I think Visaki starts just before our next council meeting. So, um it's also an April observance. And so, uh just to all the people that uh make this city home, everybody is welcome here. Uh everybody supports each other and has every opportunity we hope and we try to make that the case. Uh to celebrate your faith, support each other. Remember that we're all in it together. Uh and take the time to reflect on how we can have each other's back. uh hold each other up and continue to make sure this city is the best city to raise a child and age successfully. So, thanks very much everyone. Um we I'll go back to the um agenda. Um and I think our next piece of work is private and confidential if I'm not mistaken, clerk. And so we are going to be moving into close session. So, I'm just giving that warning to folks. Uh, and so therefore, I uh need to have a motion to move into close session. And I am going to read this big long thing because it's required for me to do so uh to let the public uh and make sure the record shows uh the reasons why we're moving into close session. So, may I have a motion to move into close session to consider items 12.3 being the close session minutes of the audit, finance, and administration committee meeting held March 26, 2026. 12.4 respecting lease of property in the city of Hamilton Ward 12. 12.5 Respecting interim and permanent measures to permit public access to Hamilton Pei Beach Boulevard, Hamilton, Ward 5. And 12.6, Six, respecting correspondence concerning human rights and workplace harassment pursuant to section 9.3 subsections B, C, D, F, and K of the city's procedural bylaw 21-021 as amended and section 2392 subsections B, C, D, F, and K of the Ontario Municipal Act 2001 as amended as a subject matter pertains to personal matters about an identifiable individual including municipal or local board employees, labor relations, or employing employee negotiations as the subject matter pertains to a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land for city or local board purposes. Advice that is subject to uh solicitor client privilege including communications necessary for that purpose and as a subject matter pertains to a position plan procedure criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the city or a local board. So, that was I'm going to need a drink after that. Not a drink drink, just a drink of water. Just a drink of water. Too many after parties after the judos. Anyways, I see somebody noting over here that they wanted to move that motion. So, that's moved by councelor Nan, seconded by councelor Paul's. Uh, can we have then a vote to go into camera uh into private and confidential? All those in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, thank you. That carries unanimously. We'll now begin the process of shutting things down momentarily. Thank you question. Yeah. Okay, we're ready. Okay, welcome back into open session everyone. Uh we'll just go through the items uh as discussed in in closed 12.3 close session minutes of the audit finance administration committee meeting held on March 26 2026. Can I have a motion please to adopt the close session minutes and maintain their confidentiality? Moved by councelor uh Spataphora, second by councelor Nan. Uh can you have a show of hands please on that one? All those in favor? Any opposed? That one's carried. Thanks very much. uh lease of uh property in the city of Hamilton Ward 12. May I have a motion to approve the confidential directions staff and maintain the confidentiality of the matter? Uh moved by councelor Casar, seconded by councelor Alex Wilson. Um that's an electronic vote please folks on that one. Uh councelor Jackson saying thumbs up. Okay. Well, so we don't need a recorded vote. Then I think it's everybody in favor, but I can uh I can um be corrected. No, thumbs up. Yes. 13 to zero. Thanks very much all. Oh, it's 14 to zero. Councelor Crutch was still marked as absent. Okay. I think the machine was I don't uh Okay. I don't see myself up there either. So are you. Should we do that vote again? Do you want we do we need to do the vote again? How about if I just ask is there anybody opposed to this motion? There are no people opposed to this motion. We'll fix that. So everybody present is in in favor. Great. Uh okay then. And now we're going to 12.5 interim and permanent measures to permit public access to Hamilton Piers Beach Boulevard, Hamilton, Ward 5. May I have a motion to approve the confidential directions to staff and to maintain the confidentiality of the matter. Moved by councelor uh Francis and seconded by councelor Oh, seconded by councelor Jackson. Uh this is also an electronic vote. So let's see how we manage on this one. Okay, it's not coming up. Uh, I'm getting something weird. I getting this. Oh, there it just came up. Okay, vote is up and submitted. Votes open. Ready to go. He seconded it. That carries 15 to zero. Thanks very much everybody. Uh we're now on to 12.6 human rights and workplace harassment. I have a motion to receive the confidential correspondence and maintain the confidentiality of the matter. Moved by councelor Cretch, seconded by councelor Wang. Uh that's an electronic vote as well, folks. Please. I'm not. Oh, there it is. Votes loading. Okay, votes open. That carries 15 to zero. Thanks very much, folks. Almost at the finish line. Number 13 on our agenda is the bylaws. Councelor Tatis, may I please have the motion on the bills? by seconded by former deputy mayor councelor Bey. Um that bills 26058 to 26070 be passed and the corporate seal be affixed there too and that the bylaws be numbered be signed by the mayor and the city clerk to read as they are stated in this very long motion which I will not read. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion on the bills? Seeing none, let's have an electronic vote, please. Thank you, sir. You're a good man. Don't let it That carries 15 to zero. Thanks very much, everyone. and have a safe and uh pleasant uh long weekend and enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you. Is it a long weekend already? Don't we have to tell Thursday in the work? You still have Thursday?

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